Bianchi e Neri II (Acetates) - Plate D, 1970

Alberto Burri  

Bianchi e Neri II (Acetates) - Plate D is an original print, hand-signed in pencil on the lower right margin by Alberto Burri.
Hand-numbered in pencil on the lower left.
Edition of 90 prints plus 15 artist's proofs numbered in Roman numerals, out of commerce.

This beautiful plate is embossed on zinc plate and lithographed. After this process, Burri made a collage of acetates on Fabriano Rosaspina paper. With the embossing stamp of the publisher Stamperia 2RC (Rome) on the lower left corner.
Printed and published by Stamperia 2RC, Rome, in 1970.

This artwork is a sheet of the "Black and white II", a series that Alberto Burri realized in 1970, using an elaborate mix of techniques, such as lithography, chalcography, and acetate collage.
This six-etching portfolio, was printed by the Roman print shop 2RC, well-known for its graphic experimentations between the 1960s and the 1970s.

Valter and Eleonora Rossi, founders of the 2RC Art Editions, intensely believed that graphics had to be considered a proper artistic genre, just like painting and sculpture, and not a mere extension of them. Thanks to an inventive experimentation, 2RC was able to graphically reproduce processes and contents expressed by contemporary artists.
The partnership between Rossi and Alberto Burri is one of the most relevant examples that explain such an editorial choice. New media, such as acetate, indeed, allow a new series of artistic choices, and especially in these six "Black and White", they grant to the etching the same range of white as the one in paintings. Acetates are graphically independent from paintings.

In occasion of Burri's exhibition in 2RC Gallery in Milan, Cesare Brandi underlined an interesting point of view on the graphic works by the Umbrian artist and on the relationship between graphic technique and painting: "With him (Burri), it is possible to consider parallel series, in which the same plastic motif is reproduced in both painting and etching, so that we may think of the etching just as a smaller motif. But the difference is in the layout, the space on the sheet that focuses on the image. For this reason, the margins are no longer the link with the walls, like frames in a painting, but they become an inseparable part of the image, so we can say that the etching is taking along its invisible wall".