Lucio Fontana

Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Rome
Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1969

Buenos Aires, Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato di Tella, Lucio Fontana, 1966, no. 70
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Lucio Fontana, The Spatial Concept of Art, no. 79
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Lucio Fontana - Concetti Spaziali, 1967, no. 60
Copenaghen, Louisiana Museum, Fontana, 1967, no. 51
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Fontana. Idéer om rymden, 1967, no. 71
Hannover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Lucio Fontana, 1968, no. 51

Arte Casa, no. 64, November 1965, p. 51, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Brussels 1974, Vol. II, p. 170, no. 65 TE 32, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Milan 1986, Vol. II, p. 597, no. 65 TE 32, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, Vol. II, p. 785, no. 65 TE 32, illustrated

Colour: the colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the tonality of the frame is slightly warmer. Condition: this work is in very good condition. Examination under ultra-violet light reveals a few small retouching to the right side of the canvas. The outer section has a few small losses at the corners which have been retouched.
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"The Teatrini look like small stages upon which silhouettes of trees and bushes lead their magic existence." (Erika Billeter in: Exhibition Cataloge, New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana, 1977, p. 19).

 

Mediating an intangible boundary between painting and sculpture, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino is an outstanding example of Lucio Fontana's Teatrini (little stages) series, which the artist created between 1964 and 1966. Contained by a candid shaped wooden frame, the luminous white picture plane has been elegantly punctured with the artist's signature buchi (holes) that strike through to the conceptual infinity of the void beyond the picture plane. Executed just after La fine di Dio cycle, this series epitomizes Fontana's attempt to create a physical landscape that would represent Spatial Infinity. Although abstract, these small stages display figurative allusions through the silhouettes of the wooden frame elements that evoke trees and bushes, and the space between the frame and the punctuated background 'scenery', which alludes to an actual theatre. The frame has the aspiration to be a point of contact with reality as well as a window towards the infinity. Fontana's Teatrini ultimately embody the artist's desire to create a celestial spectacle, a tangible experience of the cosmos.  As observed by Luca Massimo Barbero and Massimo Campigli, "these works do not possess 'theatricality' in the sense that they are a story, but respond to the artist's constant need to create an image that exists where everything is metaphorical, the fruit of fantasy and the memory of a possible future universe." (Luca Massimo Barbero and Paolo Campigli cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Mantova, Casa del Mantegna, Lucio Fontana. Teatrini, 1997, p. 13)   

 

Loyal to the tradition of 20^th Century Italian sculptors, such as Arturo Martini and Fausto Melotti who had employed analogous frameworks, Fontana enlarged the scope and artistic dimension of his Teatrini. In 1967 Lucio Fontana's Teatrini converged in the artist's collaboration with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where the artist designed the costume and scenery for the ballet Don Chisciotte by Goffredo Petrassi. During these memorable performances the concept beneath his Teatrini was enlarged and the stage set adapted for this pièce animated by dancers and music. In the same way as in Don Chisciotte, Fontana's ultimate intent was to translate through the Teatrini his Spatialist philosophy into a physical experience for the spectators.  As observed by Crispolti, "[these] represent a hypothesis of Spatial figuration where the monochrome sky spatially perforated with constellations of holes in different conformations is distanced by the frame which has various protruding shapes. Fontana would refer to them as 'realist Spatialism'." (Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, Vol. I, p. 79). Through the involvement of the spectator, the Teatrini are innerly connected with the artist's quest to experience the Infinity in his Ambienti Spaziali.

 

Reaching his artistic maturity in the aftermath of World War II, a time of radical social, political and technological change, Fontana 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). Contemporaneous with humankind's first explorations into Space, Concetto Spaziale, Teatrino captures within its extraordinary topography a revolutionary and unique perspective on human experience. This body of works was executed as a direct response to the growing phenomenon of space which grew around Yuri Gagarin's first trip in 1961. As observed by Enrico Crispolti specifically regarding the Teatrini, "[...] the proof that Fontana intends a possible cosmic figuration lies in his specific interest in that extraordinary image of man's first walk in space, connected by an umbilical cord of survival to the spaceship, which appeared in the newspaper at that time." (Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, Vol. I, p. 70) Concetto Spaziale, Teatrino beautifully conveys the artist's fascination with the mysteries of space and matter, which 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).

 

By 1965, the year the present Concetto spaziale, Teatrino was executed, the theoretical framework of his Spatialism was well-developed: "I am seeking to represent the void. Humanity, accepting the idea of Infinity, has already accepted the Idea of Nothingness. And today Nothingness is a mathematical formula" (the artist interviewed by Neiro Minuzzo, 1963, cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Hayward Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1999-2000, p. 148). Fontana's Teatrini were not built following conventional laws of perspective, on the contrary the artist's stages attempt through a dramatic use of lights and shadows to create magical atmospheres that allow to grasp the 'Immaterial' and what lies beyond the stage. As observed by Erika Billeter, "the Teatrini look like small stages upon which silhouettes of trees and bushes lead their magic existence." (Erika Billeter in: Exhibition Cataloge, New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana, 1977, p. 19). 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 work of sublime rarefied beauty, where there are no boundaries for the artist's expressive freedom.