Private Collection, Milan
Galleria d'Arte Niccoli, Milan
Kodama Gallery, Osaka
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1991

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, p. 188, no. 67 T 15, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Generale, Vol. II, Milan 1986, p. 656, no. 67 T 15, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. II, Milan 2006, p. 852, no. 67 T 15, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are a few scattered very fine tension cracks to the four extreme overturn edges. Some very gentle wear can be noticed upon close inspection to the four extreme corner tips and along the left and right extreme edges, with associated specks of dirt adhering to it, visible upon close inspection only. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet 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."

"The rapture of the canvas, ground of all previous pictorial illusion and basis in the past for scientific certainties such as perspective, evokes the splitting of the atom. Or the upsetting of  Newtonian concepts of space and time by Einstein...
Fontana's violation of the seamless canvas seems in retrospect as bold and as breakthrough as Jackson Pollock's in the same period. In 1946-47 Pollock liberated pigment and pictorial gesture from the obligation to circumscribe an image, whether figurative or abstract. Fontana... liberated the artist and the critic from the traditional distinction between one genre and another, equivocating between object, relief, illusion, reality, painting and sculpture." (Thomas Krens in Exhibition Catalogue , Venice, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Homage to Lucio Fontana, 1987, p. 8)

 

Concetto Spaziale, Attese, executed in 1967, is a mature example of Lucio Fontana Tagli, the most  celebrated series in the artist's oeuvre. Produced between 1958 and the artist's death in 1968, they embody Fontana's aspiration for a purified and immaterial artistic language, capable of providing a lyrical solution to the need for going beyond the physical limits of the surface. By physically breaking through the canvas, Fontana disclosed unimaginable 💜expressive possibilities for contemporary painting. His act of slashing opened the canvas up to the space beyond it, thus liberating the artist from the slavery to the flat surface, and eliminating all the boundaries to his expressive freedom.

 

In the prꦐesent work, our eye and our mind are forced by the visual drama of the cuts opened on a red, fiery background, to meditate upon what lies beyond and behind the ca🧜nvas surface.

 

"I did not want to make a painting - wrote Fontana in 1965 - I want to open a space....I make a hole in the canvas and the infinite comes through."(Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. I, Brussels 1974, p.7)