Lucio Fontana

Remo Pastori, Turin
Jean Leppien, Paris
Acquired by the present owner circa 1985

Turin, Galleria Il Punto, Fontana, 1966 

"A butterfly in space excites my imagination. Freed from rhetoric, I lose myself in time and begin my holes..."  
(Lucio Fontana cited in Renato Miracco, Lucio Fontana at the Roots of Spatialism, Milan 2006, p. 49)

"With my innovation of the hole pierced through the canvas in repetitive formations, I have not attempted to decorate a surface, but on the contrary; I have tried to break its dimensional limitations. Beyond the perforations, a newly gained freedom of interpretations awaits us, but also, and just as inevitably, the end of art..."
(Lucio Fontana, Exhibition Catalogue, Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Lucio Fontana, 1966)

A symphony of simultaneous penetration and eruption, the surface of Concetto Spaziale scintillates with the tension of exactly diametric forces. Punctured and exploding, this pitted landscape is both regressive and aggressive, submissively inviting and assertively threatening. The geometric buchi (holes) pierce a window into an unknown space beyond, while the irregular glass pietre (stones) are a sculptural assault on space in front of the picture plane.  As Anthony White has explained, "The Spatial Concept engaged the viewer with an opulent vision of radiance that extended into real architectural space beyond the limited and private pictorial plane" (Anthony White, "Lucio Fontana: Between Utopia and Kitsch", Grey Room, No. 5, Autumn 2001, p. 70).

This work represents the fully-evolved climax of the spatial investigations that Fontana had initiated with his first cycle of holes in 1949. He had started adding pieces of glass to the painted surface from 1952, which led to his stones series, amongst which this example is outstanding. The year of this work was one of exceptional activity for Fontana. In 1955 he held one-man shows in Milan at the Galleria dello Zodiaco and the Galleria San Fedele, both of which addressed religious themes. He took part in the Premier Festival International de la Céramique in Cannes, the Exopsición de Arte Italiano Contemporaneo at the Palacio del Retiro in Madrid and Il Gesto, rassegna internazionale delle forme libere at the Galleria Schettini, again in Milan. Between 1955 and 1956 he also took part in the VII Quadriennale Nazionale d'Arte in Rome, where he exhibited paintings from this stones cycle.

While opaque chromatic intensity and lyrical pattern preoccupies our field of view, the piercing teeth of the canvas sear our retina. The ganzfeld, or total-field, colour suffusion of this work vies with the jagged extremity of its punctuation. The hue is emotively supercharged: this is the flayed red of passion, of blood, of fire. The beautiful fragments of glass phosphoresce like jewels breaking through a lava crust. The visceral potency of Concetto Spaziale is sufficiently transfixing to suggest "that underlying all of Fontana's art is the desire to find an imagery universal enough in its appeal to usurp centuries of Christian symbolism" (Exhibition Catalogue, London, The Hayward Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1999, p. 46).

Ultimately it is in the invention of a wholly new dialect that secures the historic significance of this piece. Fontana's punctures serve as apertures into a spatial infinity: with material rupture Concetto Spaziale moves not only beyond painting, but also beyond present time and space. This enthralling work confronts the possibilities of an indefinable sculpture in an unknowable space beyond the picture plane. In this context, what is represented on the canvas - the visible residue of a momentous action - parallels the astral vision: we can look into space and see the stars, but we will never see the unending plenitude of galaxies beyond.