AHIS BC 3626y Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Alberto Burri, Concrete Art, Abstract Expressionism
25 Aug 2016
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Thursday March 31st, 2016
Expressionism: Concrete and Kinetic Art in Latin America
Alberto Burri
• Used decaying industrial materials
• Used leftovers like burlap initiailly
• Shifted to use industrial materials like rusted metal and plastic
• Plastic is a mid 20th century invention
• Doesn’t use conventional fine art materials
• Always devoid of function or the utopian promise of Avante Garde of technological
forms of production
Art informal became the big thing in Europe, Abstract Expressionism was the
Dominant in the U.S., so Concrete Art had no following in either.
Concrete Art in South America
• Artists in Argentina, Uruguay developed concrete art
• Concrete Art was defined as an experience of understanding the code that led to
production instead of an experience of irrational sensation
• There was no natural, metaphorical significance
• The concrete work stood for nothing but itself
• the manifesto believed mathematics to be more on the realm of aesthetics and
philosophy than science
o the completely rejected works of artists like Joaquin Garcia of pseudo
abstraction
Concrete Art in Argentina
• used rectangular as windows, and therefore saw them as an illusion of space
• they sought to eliminate the window effect because they wanted to eliminate this
illusion of space
• thus came the creation of the broken window, not as an illusion, but a reflection of
itself
• this irregular frame concept makes a painting that refers to itself as not a painting
and also welcoming the exterior environment
• the pictures become a mathematical puzzle with irregular shapes and even though
they seem arbitrary there is dynamic interaction meant to keep
• the painting is now a presentation rather than the representation of objects
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