Lucio Fontana

Galleria Stefanoni, Lecco
Private Collection, Lecco
Galleria Marescalchi, Bologna
Sotheby's, Milan, May 20, 2002, Lot 287
Galleria Dante Vecchiato, Padova
Private Collection (acquired from the above)
Sotheby's, London, October 13, 2011, Lot 43
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures, Sculptures et Environements Spatieux, Vol. II, Brussels, 1974, p. 201, no. 68 T 53, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo Generale, Vol. II, Milan, 1986, p. 687, no. 68 T 53, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan, 2006, p. 880, no. 68 T 53, illustrated

This painting is in excellent condition. Very close inspection reveals minor evidence of handling along the top edge. Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is framed in a wood frame painted black with a 1 1/2 inch float.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The evocation of infinity, the transcendent power of a pristine and desolate whiteness, the cerebral manifestation of dynamic movement and expansive depth within an artwork:  these key tenants, wholly epitomized in Concetto Spaziale, Attese, form the very foundations of Spatialism. As a part of this revolutionary movement initiated by Lucio Fontana, the iconic rupturing of the picture attests to a seminal advance in the history of painting. Three elegantly composed cuts (tagli) puncture an unblemished and luminous surface; an act of irreverent and impassioned rupture that encapsulates the essence of Fontana’s artistic philosophy. Created in the historically radical year of 1968 in which the world ignited with social rebellions against military and bureaucratic systems, Fontana inscribes the back of his work with the poetic mantra “La rivoluzione dei giovani è sempre valida” (The youth revolution is always valid). The artist thus channels the worldwide hunger for social change that characterized one of the most politically charged years in modern history. Exemplifying his revolutionary advances in the field of painting, Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale, Attese formulates  an aesthetic Utopianism as an artistic conduit for the zeitgeist of liberation and the hope of a new freedom in the final year of his life.  

Fontana’s animated later career was driven by a desire to denounce what he called "the nightmare of the art of painting which survives with all the excessive sensibilities of aesthetic research." (the artist cited in Raffaele Carrieri, Pittura e Scultura d'avaguardia in Italia, 1890-1955, Milan, 1955, p. 287) Opening up the picture plane, three exquisitely precise cuts made along the vertical axis redefine the concept of space within art, tearing down both the aesthetic dogma of renaissance linear perspective and the plastic limitations of abstract art.  Set out in his early 1946 Manifiesto Blanco, white remains the most important color of Fontana’s aesthetic uprising, representing a resolute blankness upon which he exorcises pictorial rule and, opening up a contrasting void that liberates painting from its dimensional boundaries. Participating in Documenta IV in Kassel in 1968, Fontana placed a large, plaster slash as the center of a totally white labyrinth entitled Ambiente Spaziale Bianco, reifying his overruling penchant for a colorless field.

Crucially the present work’s date also endows it with a new anarchistic context: seminal developments in the civil rights movement in the United States; mass protests against the Vietnam War staged across the globe; the historic May worker demonstrations and industrial strikes which, involving millions of workers, reconfigured France’s economic landscape - these were but some of the significant events that colored the vibrant political landscape of 1968. Often fronted by the younger generations, the flavor of rebellion was in the air. Evinced in his lyrical inscription on the reverse, Fontana was evidently enraptured by this widespread desire for change at this late point in his career and life. Fontana had always championed art’s capacity to break conventions and the events of 1968 struck a chord with his own aesthetically anarchistic tendencies. Evident in the manifestos of his early career, a staple of radical movements, articulated in his bucchi and then perfected in his tagli, Fontana’s art had always broken apart physical and conceptual order as a means of progression. Even a few months before his death this same year the artist exhibited at Destruction Art, Destroy to Create at the Finch College Museum of New York.

Fontana’s tagli paintings represent the conceptual climax of his career, commenting two years before Concetto Spaziale, Attese was executed: "I have invented a formula that I think I cannot 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." (the artist cited in Giorgio Bocca, “Il taglio è il taglio: Incontro con Lucio Fontana, il vincitore di Venezia”, Il Giorno, 6 July 1966). Initiating this motif in 1958 these works are bound to the burgeoning space race of the period, an optimistic fascination with extra-terrestrial exploration and the artist’s interest in theories of the fourth dimension. Created at the end of a decade dedicated to the tagli, and in the vein of the Italian Futurists, in the present work Fontana once again enshrines the modern age through a quietened act of violence. Yet as his final ode to the revolutionary spirit of his art he looks not to the sky and the infinity of the universe, but perhaps the potential to cross political frontiers on earth, within society. In the years since Fontana's death a number of major retrospectives have progressively showcased his genius, and with a major exhibition planned to take place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2017, Fontana remains increasingly relevant today.