The exhibition “NERO Perugino/Burri” was presented on the morning of Wednesday, April 5 at Palazzo Graziani by the two curators, the art historian Vittoria Garibaldi and the president of the Burri Foundation Bruno Corà, together with the president of the Perugia Foundation Cristina Colaiacovo.
The exhibition will create dialogues between the works of the two great Umbrian artists, identifying the use of black color as fil rouge to connect the two masters, in an innovative comparison: the black background, that doesn’t show any sign of landscape and architectural settings, represents a great innovation for Perugino’s era, and it is one of the most recurring features in the work of Burri.
As Vittoria Garibaldi, who curated the great exhibition on Perugino held in 2004, explained: “I had the honour of meeting Alberto Burri during the eighties. He used to walk the streets of the Renaissance of central Italy together with his closest friends, like Nemo Sarteanesi. This dialogue has distant roots and is confirmed by the lines, shapes and chromatic sensibilities that unite the two great artists”.
Bruno Corà continues on: “The affinities to be grasped in this exhibition with Perugino, as happened in 2015 during Burri’s confrontation with Piero della Francesca and even with Signorelli, reside in the relationship between their works that Brandi has defined as “allotropic”, that is, of creations that have different aspects but are united by the same substance: it concerns, in fact, beyond the black color, the indispensable need for form, space and balance in the work”.
There will be about 20 works on display: the Burri Foundation has made available the works of the artist born in Città di Castello, in addition to important loans from prestigious museums, from the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria to the Uffizi Gallery and the Louvre Museum.
