Lucio Fontana

Private Collection, Turin
Sale: Sotheby's, London, 20th Century Italian Art, 22 October 2001, Lot 29
Acquired directly at the above by the present owner

Turin, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Lucio Fontana, 1972, no. 152, fig. 142, illustrated
London, Gagosian Gallery, Living, Looking, Making, 2007

Mario de Micheli, Scultura Italiana del Dopo Guerra, Milan 1958, pl. 45, illustrated
'Milano, nello Studio di Lucio Fontana', in: Domus, no. 379, June 1961, p. 38, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, 'L'Avventura di Fontana', in: Arte Illustrata, no. 7-12, July-December 1968, p. 74, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, p. 46, no. 57 SC 4, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, p. 162, no. 57 SC 4, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 315, no. 57 SC 4, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is richer and warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Some minute dust fibres have adhered to the work's surface, in particular to the recesses. There are a number of fine scattered rub marks in places to the stem, which have led to some minute associated spots of media loss. All the tonal and textural variations to the work's surface are inherent to the artist's chosen material and its natural ageing process.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This Concetto Spaziale, Forma is a fabulous example of the brave attitude that was to sweep Lucio Fontana into the 1960s and, in his last decade, see him lauded as the Godfather of the Nouveau Réalistes. In 1958 Fontana was awarded a whole room in the International Pavilion at the XXIX Venice Biennale, and here the present piece, as one of a series of just eight specially created new sculptures, served to consolidate Fontana's eminence on an international scale. In the flesh, grandeur combines with intimacy: with a distinctive handling of form, line and colour, Fontana has teased together the figurative and the abstract to beguilingly subtle effect.

 

This Concetto Spaziale, Forma marks a key moment in Fontana's conceptual development, following the sequence of his five manifestos on Spatialism between 1947 and 1952, and presaging his great Tagli series of canvases. Freestanding on the floor, a seductive curved line draws the eye up from the ground, incurring a significant shift in weight from the iron base upwards to the feather-light head of the object, which hovers at around waist level. The sense of movement captured by the thin bird-like shape, floating at an angle, lends the ironwork a surprising delicacy. In this light, the present piece can be seen as a flight through media, and as such captures the artist's thought process at a pivotal point in his career. Its mid-motion stance highlights Fontana's key principle: 'Matter exists in movement and in no other form; its development is eternal.' (Spatial Manifesto, 1946, in Guido Ballo, Lucio Fontana, New York, 1970, pp. 228-230). Like a golden phoenix rising from the gallery floor, the graceful lilt of this Concetto Spaziale, Forma's pose is as if caught in the moment of take-off; it signals a new dawn in art.

 

Fontana insisted that his work looked beyond the art world to wider and rapidly expanding contemporary horizons. In parallel with the awesome ambition of the space race, he felt impelled to reassess spatial understanding on every level. The response embodied by this Concetto Spaziale, Forma suggests that the making of art is in itself a kind of space race. Thus it was that Fontana favoured the term 'spatial concept', emphasising that an artwork might be a painting or sculpture, but above all it is an idea expressed in materials, both of which are in a state of constant development. His drive towards deconstructing the boundaries between a work of art and the space in which that artwork is presented stems directly into his other activity at that time, such as the creation of a slit cement floor for the architect Ico Parisi in Como.

 

This piece encourages the eye to move quickly between the nine minute perforations, jabbed through the iron plane as if with a spear, to the lustrous areas of flat surface and from there out to the rough serrated edges. An all-over coat of metallic paint unites the melange of shapes, heights and textures. Fontana's fascination with the gap between solid and void fuelled his working life, as witnessed by the curation of early Barocchi, Gessi, and Inchostri sculptures from the 1930s and 1940s in the same room as his new Spatial Concept series at the XXIX Venice Biennale. As the artist rather self-deprecatingly said in his last interview, "You see, unfortunately I am an explorer...I make holes in order to find something else..." (Exhibition Catalogue, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1988, p. 34). In this piece, Fontana is conducting an exploration of abstract concepts through cycles of organic form; the organic aesthetic of this golden, bird-like Concetto Spaziale, Forma can be seen to incubate ideas that were to take such magnificent form in the 'Fine di Dio' series several years later.

 

The Concetto Spaziale, Forma in question is charged with the momentum unique to Fontana at his boldest and best. This is a momentum energised by his own progressive understanding  - concretely, cosmically and euphorically - of space. Fontana pierces the idea that abstraction can suffice as the artist's sanctum, and through the holes in the iron (echoed in canvas, famously) he looks beyond the Greenbergian sanctum of the flat, abstract plane. A sense of possibility is sucked in from the contemporary world. And the exceptional strength of this piece is the brilliant subtlety with which such enormous insight materializes on a delightfully human scale.