Skin to work : shifting materialities, ambiguous boundaries

Abstract

This thesis challenges existing readings of paintings by Alberto Burri which discuss the work in relation to matter or the body or the psyche. The reading of Burri's Ferro, Sacco, Combustione Legno and Grande Legno G59 demonstrates how the work effects a dynamic quality of alternation between the skin and 'brute' matter. The signification of the work shifts between two types of materiality - that of sheet metal, hessian, plastic and plywood and that of the wounded human skin and psyche.It is argued that the ambiguity of the materiality of Burri's paintings effects a dynamic reciprocity between subject and object. The author argues that Burri's painting alerts the viewer to the reciprocities between industrial materials, corporeal surfaces and subjectivities, to the continuities and ambiguities with and between the skin and work

Date of Award	1998
Original language	English