Lucio Fontana

Anna Daelli, Milan
Private Collection, Milan
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 20 May 1987, Lot 370
Gallery Art Point, Tokyo
Private Collection, Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Tokyo, Tama Art University Museum, Lucio Fontana. Spatial Conception, 1990, p. 58, no. 54, illustrated in colour

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Brussels 1974, vol. II, pp. 184-185, no. 66 T 82, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Milan 1986, vol. II, p. 645, no. 66 T 82, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, vol. II, p. 840, no. 66 T 82, illustrated

Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter. Condition: The work is in very good condition. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet 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."

Produced in 1966, the year in which Fontana was awarded the International Grand Prize for Painting at the XXXIII Venice Biennale, Concetto Spaziale, Attese epitomizes the artist's groundbreaking explorations in Spatialism. This red variation on Fontana's signature Concetto Spaziale fuses together sensual intimations and the artist's research in conceptually translating infinity of space into the canvas. Exquisitely executed, the two lyrical slashes simultaneously evince spontaneity and control. The rich, saturated layer of red waterpaint allows the weave of the canvas to show through, insistently drawing attention to the materiality of the artwork. With a sculptor's sensibility, Fontana discarded conventional reverence for the canvas, and instead treated it as an artistic object in its own right. As an image of spatial reality, Fontana emphasises the canvas's presence with bold, invasive gesture. Fontana, cutting directly into the canvas, creates a beautiful contrast to the delicacy of the waterpaint.

In Concetto Spaziale, Attese Fontana performed surgery on the very concept of painting, committing sacrilege on Clement Greenberg's high altar of Modernism, the flat picture plane. As Fontana declared in his last recorded interview: "I make a hole in a canvas in order to leave behind the old pictorial formulae, the painting and the traditional view of art and I escape, symbolically, but also materially, from the prison of the flat surface" (conversation with Tommaso Trini, July 19, 1968, in Exhibition Catalogue, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1988, p. 34). This inquiry into the grey area between painting and sculpture takes a particularly alluring form in the brilliant red of the present Concetto Spaziale, Attese.

In the present work, our eye and our mind are forced by the visual pureness of the cuts opened on a red, fiery background, to meditate upon what lies beyond and behind the canvas surface.