Lucio Fontana

Giampaolo Bazzaro, Milan

Galleria Morone, Milan

V. Ponti, Varese 

Galleria Seno, Milan

Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1979-80

Milan, Galleria Morone, L. Fontana, 1970, n.p., illustrated in colour (incorrectly illustrated and dated)

Milan, Galleria d'Arte Medea, L'Avventura Spaziale di Lucio Fontana, 1974, p. 16, illustrated in colour

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, p. 110,  no. 61 O 37, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, p. 368, no. 61 O 37,  illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti e Ambientazioni, Vol. II, Milan 2006, p. 552, no. 61 O 37, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals a minor loss to the top right corner. There are a few hairline cracks in isolated places, most notably three around the central slash. Further inspection reveals two star cracks, one to the left of the central cut and one towards the centre of the lower edge, all of which are inherent to the drying process of the work and the artist's working process. No restoration is apparent under ultra-violet light.
"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."

A surface of viscous golden paint and thick impasto, Concetto Spaziale is a sumptuous manifestation of Lucio Fontana’s attempts to transcend the boundaries of traditional painting through the radical penetration of the canvas ground. Executed in 1961, the work was created during a time considered to be one of the artist’s most ardent periods of production. By 1960 Fontana had forged his place as a forerunner of contemporary artistic innovation and was highly venerated among international art critics. In the first half of 1961, having been invited to contribute to the Arte e Contemplazione exhibition at the Centro Internazionale delle Arti e del Costume of the Palazzo Grassi, Fontana painted the highly venerated series of twenty-two, one and-a-half metre square paintings dedicated to Venice. Created that same year, the present work’s richly opulent palette echoes this renowned cycle of Venezie paintings, housed in the prominent collections of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, and pays tribute to the city, which for Fontana “[…] was the island of art, of accomplishment, of international encounter” (Luca Massimo Barbero quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Collection; and New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana: Venice/ New York, 2006-07, p. 27).

Fontana reserved his use of gold for only the most important occasions. Laden as it is with traditional symbolism, the deep and pearlescent warmth of gold in Concetto Spaziale conjures treasured Venetian masterpieces, from the winged golden lion of St Mark, the city’s Patron, to the dazzling, gilded mosaic interior of St Mark's Basilica. Its celestial glow evokes the visually commanding and spiritually enriching properties of Italian devotional art. Known for their use of precious gold leaf to symbolise and pay tribute to divine presence, this venerative history established the iconographic centrality of gold pigment. Fontana's contemporaries, notably Yves Klein, congruently explored the transcendent qualities of gold. Klein’s first Monogold dates from 1959, and in the early 1960s Lucio Fontana purchased MG 42 for his personal collection. Three years after creating the present work, Fontana inscribed an Olio from 1964 with the message l'Oro è bello come il Sole! – “Gold is as beautiful as the sun!” Traditionally the most opulent and precious of metals, and believed across cultures to symbolise the powers of the sun, Fontana was utterly captivated by this material’s potential.

Bearing reference to the ornamental programmes of Baroque and Byzantine aesthetics the luscious gold surface of Concetto Spaziale is an engrossing visual experience. The landscape of paint that confronts the viewer appears molten like a pool of liquid gold; burnished like an ingot wrestled from the earth's crust; and unearthly like a smoothly incinerated meteorite. To achieve this faceted texture Fontana smothered the canvas in lavish layers of thick paint using his hands and a palette knife. His actions are retold by three-dimensional shadows fixed as recesses, ridges and circular ruptures. The decorative scrolls have been channelled by finger tips, the downward pressure pushing up burred edges like furrows ploughed in wet soil. In order to facilitate this extravagant working method it had been necessary for Fontana to develop new materials as the viscosity of conventional oil paint caused thick areas to sag and change shape during the lengthy drying period. As proved by Barbara Ferriani and others, between 1960 and 1961 Fontana started to add a stearic-acrylic resin to oil paint as a hardener to achieve the unique impasto, which he could manipulate further during its faster drying time (Barbara Ferriani quoted in: ibid., p. 222). In Concetto Spaziale the three-dimensionality of the pigment is enhanced by a single shimmering ruby-coloured pietre, which adorns Fontana’s iconic central slash.

Painted the same year that Yuri Gagarin pioneered Man’s ascent into space, Concetto Spaziale parallels an era of momentous achievement in human history. Gagarin’s galactic ascent affirmed the overwhelming concept of spatial infinity and provided the ultimate metaphor for humankind's existentialist isolation in the void. Fontana's contemporaneous work takes this existential idea beyond its representation to its actual manifestation, as described by Crispolti: "Fontana, in fact, replaced the issue of the perception of reality with that of the conception of reality... considered as substantially dynamic, fluid, relative and infinite" (Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Tomo I, Milan 2006, pp. 11-13).

Concetto Spaziale thus conjures astral incandescence via the gleaming reflections of its aurous metallic surface and the shimmering facets of light reflected off its opulent red pietre. As the controlled central slash acts as a window of epiphany through the heavy deposits of golden paint into the 'infinite space of the void' beyond, the work is a gleaming epitome of Fontana’s ground-breaking artistic quest.