Lucio Fontana

Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf
Galerie Gunar, Düsseldorf
Sale: Finarte, Milan, 16 October 1986, Lot 187
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Milan, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna; Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Mostra della Critica Italiana 1961, 1961-1962, p. 40, no. 44, illustrated
Wuppertal, Kunst-und Museumverein, Hommage à Fontana, 1969, no. 25

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Brussels 1974, vol. II, p. 112, no. 61 O 65, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Milan 1986, vol. I, p. 376, no. 61 O 65, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, vol. II, p. 564, n. 61 O 65, illustrated

 

Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the illustration fails to convey the thick layers of paint and the textural quality of the surface. Condition: The work is in very good condition. There are few thin and stable hairline cracks toward the hole on the left and the hole on the right. Close inspection reveals few further thin and stable hairline cracks toward the top and bottom right corners, towards the top left corner and towards the centre of the left edge and a few faint handling marks to the right centre of the bottom edge. 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."

Exhibiting rich painterly virtuosity, Concetto Spaziale delivers a sublime effect of material density, a lyrically asymmetrical composition, and a certain aesthetic pureness that is archetypal of Lucio Fontana's celebrated Olii. Executed in 1961 simultaneously with the Venezia cycle, the present work witnesses the fruitful union of the artist's spatial experiments from the 1950s with his recent ventures in oil paint, whose thicker and heavier form had re-awakened the sculptor in Fontana. In contrast with the Baroque aesthetics of the Venezie, Concetto Spaziale masterfully condenses the pureness of Fontana's gesture with his painterly ability.

The dense surface has been built up with layer upon layer of thick paint, creating a heavy, textured skin onto which Fontana has incised a matrix of fluid sweeping gestures and pierced a sequence of holes. These energised painterly and sculptural marks seem to orbit within a semicircular line which stages the rhythm of the composition and seems to anticipate Fontana's Teatrini series (1964-66). The present work also further consolidates Fontana's ongoing series of Buchi, which are here used in conjunction with and also as a counterfoil to the fluid and dynamic painterly surface. Now able to convey space and movement across the entire picture plane through the thick surface as well as gesture, these delicate holes break through the canvas with a real sense of power and depth, becoming themselves rapid streaks of energy that seem to originate from the inner core of the composition.

In Fontana's oeuvre the space enters the painting as a tangible reality and an aesthetic gesture. First in the Buchi series (1949), in which the canvas is punctured; then in the Pietre series (1952), in which fragments of Murano glass pebbles are added to the canvas; finally in the Tagli series (1958), in which the canvas is slashed. All these different approaches extend the traditional boundaries of painting, by offering lyrical solutions to the desire to penetrate beyond the confines of the surface. The Olii series condenses both the conceptual and material advancements of Fontana's experimental precedent using the highest artistic medium.

Reaching his artistic maturity in the aftermath of World War II, a time of radical social, political and technological change, the artist was profoundly impressed by the restless achievements of science, and in particular by space exploration. Just as the Futurists at the beginning of the century had tried to capture the essence of modern life, Fontana aspired to find a poetic articulation and an aesthetic metaphor for the conquest of space. Fontana investigated new solutions of rendering this sense of 'spatial dynamism', inspired in his pictorial and sculptural innovations by the legacy of Futurism and Baroque, which the artist formalized in his treatise Manifesto Bianco (1946). Concetto Spaziale was painted at the same time as Yuri Gagarin's momentous first manned flight into space and beautifully conveys the artist's fascination with the mysteries of space and matter. This meant for him 'materializing' the space, making visible the invisible, making palpable the impalpable. As he explained "A butterfly in space excites my imagination: having freed myself from rhetoric, I lose myself in time and begin my holes." (the artist cited in: Leonardo Sinisgalli, Pittori che scrivono. Antologia di scritti e disegni, Milan 1954, p. 115).

Concetto Spaziale perfectly represents Fontana's groundbreaking achievement in Spatialism. With its rich surface texture and irregular patterns and apertures Concetto Spaziale mediates between painting and sculpture communicating a great sense of movement and dynamism. The raised rims around the holes indicate how Fontana incised their shape while the paint was still drying. The choice of an absolute white colour translates Fontana's research of dematerialization of the pictorial surface towards pure spatiality in a sort of purification path.

The viewer's eye and mind are forced to meditate upon what lies beyond the canvas surface. The delicate white colour finally appears as a pure cosmos incised by a trascendent vital and phenomenological energy. The result is a surface of sublime rarefied beauty, where there are no boundaries for the artist's expressive freedom.