Alberto Burri's sacks and Lucio Fontana's spatial concepts on one side; on the other, the majestic altarpieces of Piero della Francesca, Raffaello's renaissance paintings, Canaletto's Venetian views or works by Tiziano, Bellini and Caravaggio. This is how the exhibition Burri and Fontana in Brera will be presenting the works of the two great 20th-century masters in the Pinacotheca of Brera, until 3rd October.
An audacious exhibition which combines the sacred "monsters" of the history of Italian art with Burri and Fontana, two of the most radical protagonists of 20th-century abstract art, contested by critics and by contemporary politics. An extraordinary project which lets the two artists' works enter the Pinacotheca overpoweringly, not in order to complete the collection, but to propose a new fruition, with unpredictable results, of its paintings. Indeed, some of Burri and Fontana's works - all belonging to the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri in Città di Castello and to the Fondazione Lucio Fontana in Milan - will be placed next to the permanent arrangement of the museum in an exuberant and rich dialogue which transforms and enriches substantially with visual contents and food for thought one of the main public Italian museums, very appreciated by foreigners but not very well known by the inhabitants of Lombardy.
All the rooms of the Pinacotheca - except those dedicated to the 20th century - offer the spectators a "face-to-face" encounter, which is sometimes violent and brutal, sometimes immediate and instinctive, sometimes only an association, between Burri and Fontana's masterpieces and works by Lotto, Caravaggio, Raffaello, Bellini, Veronese, Luini, Tintoretto, Foppa, Crivelli, Tiepolo, Canaletto and many others. The many different interpretations offered by a first visual confrontation allow countless associations, assonances, oppositions and connections.
Therefore, the visitor who wishes to be involved is stimulated by a pleasant play of the mind which changes from one room to another: you can often find chromatic analogies like in Burri's marvellous Rosso Plastica next to the reds and golds of the painter Carlo Crivelli. You can observe an ironic connection between Burri's Sacks (torn and burnt jute canvases) next to the portraits of Pitocchetto's humble people, dressed in darned rags, or Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus in which the old hosts wear dark worn-out clothes.
Marvellous comparisons are offered in the room dedicated to Raffaello and Piero della Francesca, where two Renaissance masterpieces dialogue with the matter, the formal structure, the composition and, most of all, the colour used by Fontana and Burri. Sometimes the comparison assimilates the contemporary work to a figurative detail of the ancient work, as for instance in the arched shape of Burri's Bianco Nero Cellotex which emerges almost cut out from the black background of the perspective escape of Tintoretto's Finding of the Body of Saint Mark; other times it is only the rhythm, the pause, the cadenced repetition of static combinations, in a balanced and symmetric spatial distribution, which connects Paolo Veronese's Supper in the House of Simon and the repeated cuts of Lucio Fontana's Spatial Concept.
And what can we say about the golden halo in which the Renaissance Francesco Francia painted the dove of the Holy Spirit in the Annunciation, similar to the golden circle of Fontana's Spatial Concept? Together they create the magic of the creation of a new unique work.
In the room dedicated to 17th-century painting there is a fascinating arrangement of the pioneering neon installation, ideated by Fontana in 1951 for the 9th Triennale of Milan: space is transformed into a sort of baroque chapel by the ellipsis of neon mounted on the ceiling. Multi-chromatic and multi-shaped references of Burri's Gobbo Bianco are summarized in the Fiumana by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, which concludes this original itinerary through the Pinacotheca.
"I wanted to prove that there is no difference between figurative and abstract art: take Fontana's main problem, space, exactly the same as the baroque artists'", explained the superintendent of Brera Sandrina Bandera, who had the idea of the exhibition, which has been realised thanks to the Fondazione Fontana and Burri, curated together with Bruno Corà (ex director of the Art Museum of Lugano) and perfectly arranged by Corrado Anselmi.

From 17th June to 3rd October 2010
BURRI AND FONTANA IN BRERA
At the Pinacotheca of Brera
via Brera, 28 - Milan
Web: www.brera.beniculturali.it
Opening times: from Tuesday to Sunday from 8.30 am to 7.15 pm. Closed on Mondays.
Ticket: Full 11 euros; Reduced 8.50 euros.