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Galleria Blu
Via Senato 18, 20121 Milano
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Italy
Tel.++39 02 76022404
Fax++39 02 782398
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 9:30am-12:30pm, 4pm-7:30pm, Sat 4pm-7:30pm
Contact: Daniele Palazzoli
E-mail: galleriablu@tiscalinet.it
web www.galleriablu.com
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Burri & Palazzoli - La Santa Alleanza
This show was organized with the patronage of the Culture and Museums Department of Milan City Council and the participation of the Luino City Council Arts Authority.
The exhibition Burri & Palazzoli: La Santa Alleanza—held at the Palazzo Verbania, Civico Centro di Cultura- enjoyed great success in Luino. Curated by the Luino City Council Arts Authority in collaboration with the Bank of Legnano, the show commemorated gallery owner and patron of the arts Peppino Palazzoli, whose name was linked to artists such as Lucio Fontana, Giuseppe Santomaso, Emilio Vedova, etc. Palazzoli had wished to be buried in Luino, having spent his childhood holidays there at the family villa.
This is a unique exhibition for at least two reasons: first, because it is not easy nowadays to amass such a number of significant masterpieces by an artist of Alberto Burri’s caliber; second, because on display for the first time ever are important documents—kept, up to now, in the Galleria Blu archives in Milan—that allow visitors to expand their knowledge and understanding of the artist.
Palazzoli has been my only patron, the only person whom I trust to sell my paintings, to exhibit them, and do everything that he should… and it has all gone magnificently, we remained friends to his dying day.” (Extract from Stefano Zorzi’s book, Parola di Burri, published by Umberto Allemandi & Co., 1995).
The exhibition—enhanced by further masterpieces—was shown at the Galleria Blu in Milan from September through November. Founded by Palazzoli in 1957, the gallery was launched with the exhibition 24 BIANCHI, an important solo show by Palazzoli’s great artist-friend.
Those were not easy years for Burri’s art. “The aim,” writes Elena Pontiggia in the catalogue, “is to reconstruct the history of their working relationship through artworks, letters, photographs, and some of the other traces that remain (catalogues, posters, tickets, newspaper cuttings, various papers and documents). Or, better, to reconstruct the history of their friendship, which paralleled such an important era in the history of art. Because that’s what it was: a friendship. They—Burri and Palazzoli—called the exclusive contract that bound them together from June 1957 the “Santa Alleanza” (the “Holy Alliance”)…”
critics and intellectuals of a more open-minded disposition—such as Tapié, Arcangeli, Seuphor, Argan, Marchiori, Calvesi, Ponente, Crispolti, Sinisgalli, E. Villa, Carrieri, etc.appreciated his work, the general public did not. The purchase of one of his sacks by the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in 1959 (whose director at the time was the ever-alert Palma Bucarelli) so upset critics that word even reached parliament where senator Terracini set up an inquiry into how much had been paid for “that old, dirty, threadbare piece of sack cloth, which, under the title of Sacco grande (Large Sack), had been placed in a frame by one Alberto Burri.”
The body of twenty important works on display, dating from 1953 to 1973, reassesses the relationship between the gallery and an artist who can be considered the most international of Italy’s twentieth century masters in an extremely positive new light. Reconstructing Burri’s career, the show starts with his famous “sacks” from the mid-’50s, moves onto his “combustions” from the following decade, in which he experimented with various materials (from paper to woods and plastics), and ends with one of the “cretto” pieces that signaled the arrival of the’70s.
The exhibition is significant for the number of landmark works it presents. These include his Grande sacco from 1954, Sacco e rosso from 1955, nero, a combustion on canvas from 1956, Nero con punti rossi from 1957, Plastica from 1964, and Bianco from 1973.
The numerous documents on show—including Palazzoli’s “Open Letter to the Editors of all Italian Newspapers,” entitled “It Should Fill Us with Pride,” in which he calls attention to the fact that the “First Prize” at the 1965 Biennale of San Paolo, Brazil had been awarded to Burri, and some previously unpublished photos taken by the artist—constitute a fundamental testimony to this singular “alliance.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a 104-page catalogue of great cultural and historical interest that contains precious, previously unpublished documents such as letters, photographs, and statements as well as numerous newspaper cuttings, tickets, cards, catalogues, and artworks that allow the reader to reconstruct and walk again through the stimulating artistic climate the times. There is a text by Elena Pontiggia and 109 illustrations in both black-and-white and color.
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La Santa Alleanza - catalogue
2001
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