'La Vernice', March-April 1966, p. 49, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, p. 141, no. 64 O 4, illustrated
Giulio Bolaffi, Catalogo dell'Arte Moderna Italiana no. 19, Milan 1983, pp. 272-273, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Generale, Vol. II, MiIan 1986, p. 481, no. 64 O 4, illustrated
Exhibiton Catalogue, Milan, Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Centenario di Lucio Fontana, 1999, p. 62, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, ed., Fontana, Milan 1999, p. 40, no. 233, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Carriera "barocca" di Fontana, Taccuino Critico 1959-2004 e Carteggio 1958-1967, Milan 2004, p. 261, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. II, Milan 2006, p. 675, ꦇno. 64 O 4, illustrated

Resplendent and luminous with a lavish surface of shimmering gold, Concetto Spaziale is a striking example from the Olii, a group of works which include Fontana's celebrated Venice paintings. In the present work, Fontana has united the Baroque and the Informel on a single can🔯vas. The thick, intricately worked golden surface, reminiscent of the Venice series, along with the mixture of holes, gashes and improvised scratches recall the Baroque splendours of the city that inspired those masterworks and to which the present work is clearly related. Perforated and gouged, here, space and material are daringly combined to create a rich sense of texture and movement. 

The gilded Baroque aesthetic is perfectly suited to the theme of Venice, the jewel-like city that floats on a lagoon and which itself is filled with the reflective surfaces both of the golden mosaics of its ancient churches and the golden furniture and decorative curlicues of the later Rococo ornaments. The golden surface of Concetto Spaziale recalls the shimmering mosaics of the Basilica di San Marco as well as the opulent interior of Venice's illustrious theatre, La Fenice. The buchi, each unique and autonomo🐟us, are united by the encircling outline which reflects the lagoon surrounding Venice and her islands. However, the line is not limited to topographical descriptions of the city – it is map-like and island-like, creating the impression of viewing the world from the air, a concept which was of great importance to the artist.

The artistic theory behind the creation of the buchi was professed in Fontana's first manifesto, the Manifesto Blanco, published in 1946.  Here Fontana proposed the birth of a new 'spatialist' art, an art which would harness technological progression in its quest to articulate the 'fourth dimension'. The buchi, with their agitated surfaces, penetrated and decorated, illuminate this intangible place, where movement and time are captured in space. Fontana proposed the artist as the source of creative energy, anticipating future events and engaging with technological advancement. In Concetto Spaziale, the surface is animated with lyrical clusters of buchi, squarci and graffiti scratches, penetrating the canvas and offering the viewer a window through the encrusted openings into the void beyond. The golden surface is both Baroque and gleamingly scientific: the new world of science and technology is captured on the metallic surface of this picture, in a perfect union of the world of the future with an aesthetic from the past.

"When Lucio Fontana pierces the canvas with a stiletto or a knife, he rips open the curtain of prejudice which tries to make us believe that the world must necessarily be and remain as it is. Behind Fontana's canvas, through and across it, space opens."
Otto Piene's speech at Lucio Fontana's exhibition at the Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen🍷💝, 1962