FRAMED FAME:
Burri among his works at the 1983 Venice Biennale
In Italy, they called it
Arte Povera,
elsewhere "junk art": turning refuse burlap sacks, globs of tar into popular works. For artists like Alberto Burri, who began producing
Arte Povera
in the '50s, such trash would eventually become treasure. Museums and galleries such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York City and the Pompidou Center in Paris vied for his works for decades. In 1989, a collector shelled out $2.8 million for one of his prized
Sacco
(Sack) paintings called
Umbria Vera
. At the time of his death in 1995, Burri's most famous pieces, including the...
