Lucio Fontana Concetto Spaziale 1960 reverse
Lucio Fontana Argentinian, 1899-1968
19 3/4 x 23 5/8 inches
LUCIO FONTANA
CONCETTO SPAZIALE THEORY
COPPER SERIES
‘Einstein’s discovery of the cosmos is the infinite dimension without end. And so here we have: foreground, middle ground and background … to go further what do I have to do? I make holes, infinity passes through them, light passes through them, there is no need to paint. Everyone thought I wanted to destroy but it is not true. I have constructed’ — L. Fontana
‘Man must free himself completely from the earth, only then will the direction that he will take in the future become clear’ — L. Fontana.
An outstanding example of Lucio Fontana’s seminal series of buchi or ‘holes’, described in the artist’s catalogue raisonné as ‘copper’ colour, Concetto Spaziale (1960’s) thrusts the picture plane into new dimensions, epitomizing the artist’s quest to synthesize a new art for the Space Age. Completed in the year that Yuri Gagarin became the first man to be sent into outer space, rhythmic incisions and punctures run through the canvas to expose its three-dimensional existence, posing at once a destruction of traditional art and the creation of a radical new aesthetic concept. ‘When I hit the canvas,’ Fontana explained, ‘I sensed that I had made an important gesture. It was, in fact, not an incidental hole, it was a conscious hole: by making a hole in the picture I found a new dimension in the void. By making holes in the picture, I invented the fourth dimension’ (L. Fontana, quoted in P. Gottschaller, Lucio Fontana: The Artist’s Materials, Los Angeles 2012, p. 21).
The holes are grouped in a manner that recalls a linear constellation or galaxy which in its linear form takes a mathematical structure like few in his works, while Fontana’s rich, metallic impasto brings forth the earthy texture of a planet’s surface: the celestial pierces the terrestrial in a thrilling ruptured topography, capturing the inspiring sense of discovery that heralded an age of cosmic exploration. The mysterious chasm of space, in all its enigmatic and eternal darkness, is brought into conversation with geological expanses of time as well as the swift human motion of Fontana perforating his canvas. Concetto Spaziale is gestural and astral, organic and futuristic, primal and revolutionary. Man enters space: Fontana transcends the canvas, and brings space itself into art.
It is important to denote that the copper series follows his visit to New York in which he created his copper laminas perforated and cut to give reference to the industrious city and the sun that filtered in between the skyscrapers he contemplated in his visit.
In Concetto spaziale (1960-61), the halo of holes hints at an ovoid form; this prefigures the symbolic shape of the egg, with its myriad biological, spiritual and primeval connotations, which would become the defining motif of Fontana’s seminal series La Fine di Dio, started in 1963. The title of the series referred to Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1882 The Gay Science, which features an unhinged character declaring the ‘death of God.’ Aside from its religious associations with new life and the Resurrection, the oval was thought at the time to be the shape of the universe. In 1967 Fontana proclaimed that ‘God is invisible, God is incomprehensible; this is why no artist today can depict God seated on a throne with the world in his hands and a beard … The religions, too, must adapt themselves to the state of science’ (L. Fontana, quoted in B. Hess, Lucio Fontana 1899-1968: ‘A New Fact in Sculpture,’ Cologne 2006, p. 68). The immanent orb that emerges from the surface of Concetto spaziale therefore refers to a profound existential reconfiguration in the face of ‘the new state of science,’ not bleakly atheistic in intent but offering a novel view of the divine. On 19 June 1968, in the final interview before his death, Fontana affirmed the transcendent and humanist quality of his vision. ‘In 500 years’, time people will not talk of art ... art will be like going to see a curiosity … Today man is on earth and these are all things that man has done while on earth, but do you think man will have time to produce art while travelling through the universe? He will travel through space and discover marvellous things, things so beautiful that things here – like art, will seem worthless … Man must free himself completely from the earth, only then will the direction that he will take in the future become clear. I believe in man’s intelligence – it is the only thing in which I believe, more so than in God, for me God is man’s intelligence – I am convinced that the man of the future will have a completely new world’ (L. Fontana in T. Trini, ‘The last interview given by Fontana,’ in Lucio Fontana, exh. cat. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1988, p. 36).
Provenance
Private Collection, Milan
Marco Conte, Milan
Private Collection, Italy
Exhibitions
Lugano, Pro Arte Gallery, Lucio Fontana - Spatial Concepts, 18 Oct - 17 Nov 1984
Literature
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazoni, Vol. I, Milan, 1986, p. 406, 60B43Publications
Lucio Fontana
CONCETTO SPAZIALE THEORY - COPPER SERIES
‘Einstein’s discovery of the cosmos is the infinite dimension without end. And so here we have: foreground, middle ground and background … to go further what do I have to do? I make holes, infinity passes through them, light passes through them, there is no need to paint. Everyone thought I wanted to destroy but it is not true. I have constructed’ — L. Fontana
‘Man must free himself completely from the earth, only then will the direction that he will take in the future become clear’ — L. Fontana.
An outstanding example of Lucio Fontana’s seminal series of buchi or ‘holes’, described in the artist’s catalogue raisonné as ‘copper’ colour, Concetto Spaziale (1960’s) thrusts the picture plane into new dimensions, epitomizing the artist’s quest to synthesize a new art for the Space Age. Completed in the year that Yuri Gagarin became the first man to be sent into outer space, rhythmic incisions and punctures run through the canvas to expose its three-dimensional existence, posing at once a destruction of traditional art and the creation of a radical new aesthetic concept. ‘When I hit the canvas,’ Fontana explained, ‘I sensed that I had made an important gesture. It was, in fact, not an incidental hole, it was a conscious hole: by making a hole in the picture I found a new dimension in the void. By making holes in the picture, I invented the fourth dimension’ (L. Fontana, quoted in P. Gottschaller, Lucio Fontana: The Artist’s Materials, Los Angeles 2012, p. 21).
The holes are grouped in a manner that recalls a linear constellation or galaxy which in its linear form takes a mathematical structure like few in his works, while Fontana’s rich, metallic impasto brings forth the earthy texture of a planet’s surface: the celestial pierces the terrestrial in a thrilling ruptured topography, capturing the inspiring sense of discovery that heralded an age of cosmic exploration. The mysterious chasm of space, in all its enigmatic and eternal darkness, is brought into conversation with geological expanses of time as well as the swift human motion of Fontana perforating his canvas. Concetto Spaziale is gestural and astral, organic and futuristic, primal and revolutionary. Man enters space: Fontana transcends the canvas, and brings space itself into art.
It is important to denote that the copper series follows his visit to New York in which he created his copper laminas perforated and cut to give reference to the industrious city and the sun that filtered in between the skyscrapers he contemplated in his visit.
In Concetto spaziale (1960-61), the halo of holes hints at an ovoid form; this prefigures the symbolic shape of the egg, with its myriad biological, spiritual and primeval connotations, which would become the defining motif of Fontana’s seminal series La Fine di Dio, started in 1963. The title of the series referred to Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1882 The Gay Science, which features an unhinged character declaring the ‘death of God.’ Aside from its religious associations with new life and the Resurrection, the oval was thought at the time to be the shape of the universe. In 1967 Fontana proclaimed that ‘God is invisible, God is incomprehensible; this is why no artist today can depict God seated on a throne with the world in his hands and a beard … The religions, too, must adapt themselves to the state of science’ (L. Fontana, quoted in B. Hess, Lucio Fontana 1899-1968: ‘A New Fact in Sculpture,’ Cologne 2006, p. 68). The immanent orb that emerges from the surface of Concetto spaziale therefore refers to a profound existential reconfiguration in the face of ‘the new state of science,’ not bleakly atheistic in intent but offering a novel view of the divine. On 19 June 1968, in the final interview before his death, Fontana affirmed the transcendent and humanist quality of his vision. ‘In 500 years’, time people will not talk of art ... art will be like going to see a curiosity … Today man is on earth and these are all things that man has done while on earth, but do you think man will have time to produce art while travelling through the universe? He will travel through space and discover marvellous things, things so beautiful that things here – like art, will seem worthless … Man must free himself completely from the earth, only then will the direction that he will take in the future become clear. I believe in man’s intelligence – it is the only thing in which I believe, more so than in God, for me God is man’s intelligence – I am convinced that the man of the future will have a completely new world’ (L. Fontana in T. Trini, ‘The last interview given by Fontana,’ in Lucio Fontana, exh. cat. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1988, p. 36).