Arte Povera

Arte Povera emerged in Italy in the 1960s, named by the Italian Art critic Germano Celant in 1967. Arte Povera is characterised by the use of humble materials and metaphorical imagery culled from nature, history, or contemporary life. Coupling idealism about the redemptive power of history and art with a solid grounding in the material world, Arte Povera artists typically made the clash of opposites a source of poignancy in their work.
Pistoletto, one of the key figures of Arte Povera, began painting on mirrors in 1962, with the aim to connect painting with the constantly changing realities in which the work finds itself. Cartella A is portfolio of four prints, in which Pistoletto used aluminum foil to simulate the reflections of his mirror paintings, whilst inviting the viewer to take part in the artwork.

No Arte Povera collection can be without Pistoletto. Shapero Modern’s Cartella A prints are framed and in excellent condition. Click here for more information.

Alberto Burri is best known for his combustions and his Cretti, again using humble materials as in the Arte Povera style. He blurred the boundaries between painting and relief sculpture and redefined the concept and the creation of the monochrome. In the mid-1950s he turned to mass-produced industrial materials in prefabricated colors and developed a new technique of painting with combustion to make torched wood veneer works.

Burri married the American dancer-choreographer Minsa Craig in 1955, and from 1963 until 1991 they wintered in Los Angeles, where the artist began a dialogue with Minimalism. He had connections with Antoni Tàpies, a major influence on the revival of the art of post-war assembly in America (see Robert Rauschenberg) as in Europe. Finding inspiration from the natural cracking of the desert, Burri began his Cretti (Cracks) series in 1971 by developing the cracked paint effect that he had used throughout his early career.

Shapero Modern can offer: Cretto B an etching and aquatint by Alberto Burri with embossing from 1971, signed by the artist and numbered VI/XV, one of the artist’s proofs Published by 2RC Edizioni d'Arte in Rome (the work comes framed).