"The deliberate and the haphazard": Robert Rauschenberg alla prima personale newyorkese di Alberto Burri

Between November and December 1953, Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery hosted Burri’s first New York solo exhibition. Rauschenberg, then the gallery attendant, produced extensive photographic documentation of the exhibition which is published here in its entirety for the first time. Drawing inspiration from this material, the article examines the reception of Burri’s work in New York in the early 1950s. Through extensive critical and documentary analysis, his relationship with Rauschenberg is put into perspective in the context of the contemporary debate on the status of collage. Particular attention is focused on the critical annotations of Fairfield Porter and, above all, Hilton Kramer, a harsh commentator of Burri’s works in the ‘Partisan Review’. Finally, the analysis of contemporary testimonies and numerous documentary findings allow us to reassess the actual formal impact of Burri’s works on Rauschenberg’s production in the 1950s.