(Rosario di Santa Fe, Argentina 1899–1968 Comabbio)
“Concetto Spaziale”, ATTESA, 1968, signed, titled and inscribed on the reverse: l. Fontana / “Concetto Spaziale” / ATTESA / Oggi sono / proprio / demoraliz- / zato! ..., waterpaint on canvas, green, 55 x 46 cm, framed

This work is registered at the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan, under no. 332/3 and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Galleria Senatore, Milan
acquired from the above by the family of the present owner, early 1970s.

Literature:
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogue raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux, vol. II, Brussels 1974, no. 68 T 86 page 202 with ill.
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo generale, vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 68 T 86 page 693 with ill.
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 68 T 86 page 885 with ill.

Lucio Fontana: The immeasurability of space
Lucio Fontana pursues in his work the fundamental idea of renewing art by merging architecture, painting and sculpture. In his quest for a new spacial art form that overcomes the limitations of the two-dimensional canvas, Fontana proves to be one of the most experimental and innovative artists of the 20th century – and one that will form and inspire younger generations of artists. Fontana creates the first perforated canvases in 1949; about a decade later he takes to slashing them: brutal incisions applied to mostly monochrome canvases with a sharp knife.

Fontana’s brilliant move aims to unite real space with imagined space. His incisions are intuitive and precise like a surgical procedure, characterised by the swiftness and finesse with which they were applied. Prior to the incision, the surface was empty, unmarked space, the immaculacy of which is merely amplified by the audaciousness of the cut. He transforms the surface to a new spacial state by penetrating the very structure of the closed space. The penetration of the surface makes the fabric, the physical exterior of the canvas, sensuously cognisable, while the light dives into the crevice and disappears to open a new space underneath the surface, challenging the imagination of the viewer. The dual nature of the canvas is thus accentuated – it constitutes a physical carrier of something tangible, yet at the same time conveys the presence of something hidden. Characteristically, Fontana establishes the dialectics between physical materiality and immateriality by transcending in one swoop both the illusionism of traditional painting as well as the flat canvas as a hallmark of modernity.

Fontana created the works on offer back in 1964/65 (lot 211) and 1968 (lot 212). They distinctly represent the urgency and clarity of his later works. Initially, he mostly applied incisions orthogonally and in a rather rhythmic order to polygon-shaped canvases. In these later works, however, the technique has been reduced to one vertical slash through the central axis of a quadratic canvas. The luminous colour tones – the radiantly bright pink as well as the saturated green – draw a straight line to the lesser known but highly visionary environments he also created. He experimented with fluorescent tubes, neon and ultraviolet light to manipulate space and visual perception. A prime example of these experiments is Ambiente spaziale con neon, a work created by Fontana at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1967 and later also at Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, the European venues of his major travelling exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art New York. An S-shaped red neon tube passes through an exhibition room fully draped in red fabric. In Turin in 1961, for his Fonti di energia, soffitto di neon per ‘Italia 61’, Fontana installed a horizontal mesh of blue and green neon tubes across a high black-ceilinged exhibition room. The environments, as the slashed canvases, aspire to achieve a unity of perception, while also establishing, through interaction of colour, light, lines and objects, the sheer immeasurability of space.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
Leonardo Da Vinci

“I have invented a formula I think I can not perfect. I succeeded in giving those looking at my work a sense of spatial calm, of cosmic rigor of serenity with regard to the infinite. Further than this I could not go.”
Lucio Fontana cited in Giorgio Bocca, “Il taglio è il taglio: Incontro con Lucio Fontana, il vincitore di Venezia”, Il Giorno, 6 July 1966

“I wouldn’t define my work as ‘painting’; the works I created as early as 1946, I never called them paintings. From the onset, I thought of them as ‘Concetti Spaziali’, spacial concepts, because to me a work of art is defined by an idea, not the materials used to express it.
The canvas served, and still does, as a means to document an idea. My current works are variations over my two key visual work concepts: the hole and the incision. At a time when people were talking of planes – the planes of the surface, the depth and so forth – my perforation of the canvas was a radical gesture that breached the spacial confines of the surface. It said: now we are free to do whatever we want.
The space occupied by a painting can‘t be confined merely to the canvas, it must be expanded to include the surrounding space as well.”

Lucio Fontana interviewed by Daniele Palazzoli, Bit, no. 5, Milan, Oct. – Nov. 1967*
*Quoted from: Jole de Sanna, Lucio Fontana Materie Raum Konzept, Klagenfurt: Ritter Verlag, 1995, p. 292.

This work is registered at the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan, under no. 332/3 and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Galleria Senatore, Milan
acquired from the above by the family of the present owner, early 1970s.

Literature:
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogue raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux, vol. II, Brussels 1974, no. 68 T 86 page 202 with ill.
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo generale, vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 68 T 86 page 693 with ill.
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 68 T 86 page 885 with ill.

Lucio Fontana: The immeasurability of space
Lucio Fontana pursues in his work the fundamental idea of renewing art by merging architecture, painting and sculpture. In his quest for a new spacial art form that overcomes the limitations of the two-dimensional canvas, Fontana proves to be one of the most experimental and innovative artists of the 20th century – and one that will form and inspire younger generations of artists. Fontana creates the first perforated canvases in 1949; about a decade later he takes to slashing them: brutal incisions applied to mostly monochrome canvases with a sharp knife.

Fontana’s brilliant move aims to unite real space with imagined space. His incisions are intuitive and precise like a surgical procedure, characterised by the swiftness and finesse with which they were applied. Prior to the incision, the surface was empty, unmarked space, the immaculacy of which is merely amplified by the audaciousness of the cut. He transforms the surface to a new spacial state by penetrating the very structure of the closed space. The penetration of the surface makes the fabric, the physical exterior of the canvas, sensuously cognisable, while the light dives into the crevice and disappears to open a new space underneath the surface, challenging the imagination of the viewer. The dual nature of the canvas is thus accentuated – it constitutes a physical carrier of something tangible, yet at the same time conveys the presence of something hidden. Characteristically, Fontana establishes the dialectics between physical materiality and immateriality by transcending in one swoop both the illusionism of traditional painting as well as the flat canvas as a hallmark of modernity.

Fontana created the works on offer back in 1964/65 (lot 211) and 1968 (lot 212). They distinctly represent the urgency and clarity of his later works. Initially, he mostly applied incisions orthogonally and in a rather rhythmic order to polygon-shaped canvases. In these later works, however, the technique has been reduced to one vertical slash through the central axis of a quadratic canvas. The luminous colour tones – the radiantly bright pink as well as the saturated green – draw a straight line to the lesser known but highly visionary environments he also created. He experimented with fluorescent tubes, neon and ultraviolet light to manipulate space and visual perception. A prime example of these experiments is Ambiente spaziale con neon, a work created by Fontana at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1967 and later also at Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, the European venues of his major travelling exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art New York. An S-shaped red neon tube passes through an exhibition room fully draped in red fabric. In Turin in 1961, for his Fonti di energia, soffitto di neon per ‘Italia 61’, Fontana installed a horizontal mesh of blue and green neon tubes across a high black-ceilinged exhibition room. The environments, as the slashed canvases, aspire to achieve a unity of perception, while also establishing, through interaction of colour, light, lines and objects, the sheer immeasurability of space.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
Leonardo Da Vinci

“I have invented a formula I think I can not perfect. I succeeded in giving those looking at my work a sense of spatial calm, of cosmic rigor of serenity with regard to the infinite. Further than this I could not go.”
Lucio Fontana cited in Giorgio Bocca, “Il taglio è il taglio: Incontro con Lucio Fontana, il vincitore di Venezia”, Il Giorno, 6 July 1966

“I wouldn’t define my work as ‘painting’; the works I created as early as 1946, I never called them paintings. From the onset, I thought of them as ‘Concetti Spaziali’, spacial concepts, because to me a work of art is defined by an idea, not the materials used to express it.
The canvas served, and still does, as a means to document an idea. My current works are variations over my two key visual work concepts: the hole and the incision. At a time when people were talking of planes – the planes of the surface, the depth and so forth – my perforation of the canvas was a radical gesture that breached the spacial confines of the surface. It said: now we are free to do whatever we want.
The space occupied by a painting can‘t be confined merely to the canvas, it must be expanded to include the surrounding space as well.”

Lucio Fontana interviewed by Daniele Palazzoli, Bit, no. 5, Milan, Oct. – Nov. 1967*
*Quoted from: Jole de Sanna, Lucio Fontana Materie Raum Konzept, Klagenfurt: Ritter Verlag, 1995, p. 292.