This important museum of contemporary art has been open to the public since 1981 and collects 130 works of art of Alberto Burri (1915-1995) dating between 1948 and 1989. They are displayed in 20 rooms, and subdivided—and chronologically ordered by the artist himself—into four sections: paintings, sculptures, graphics and scenography.
The exhibition covers two floors of the building, and entirely retraces Burri's artistic experience; from the outset up until the most complex and abstract works, where the often torn-off and "suffering-matter", becomes a work of art in itself. The attention of the artist towards the transformation of matter—both natural or induced—directly exercised on materials such as tar, sacking, woods, iron and plastics by the artist himself, recalls his scientific background-in fact Burri graduated in Medical Science in 1940.
The theatrical scenographic sketches are also of great interest; in fact, the artist signed scenes and costumes for an edition of Wagner's Tristan and Iseult, staged at the Teatro Regio of Turin, La Fenice of Venice and the Opera of Rome in 1975. The works of large dimension, subdivided into cycles, are exhibited at the Former Tobacco Drying Plant—Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco.