McRoberts & Tunnard Gallery, London
Galerie Skulima, Berlin
Galerie Denise René-Hans Meyer, Krefeld
Vanno Moretti, Castiglione delle Stiviere
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art, 29 November 1995, Lot 37
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, McRoberts & Tunnard, Fontana: Paintings 1962, 1962, no. 1, illustrated
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Austin, University of Texas Art Museum, Lucio Fontana: The Spatial Concept of Art, 1966, no. 47, illustrated
Buenos Aires, Centre de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato di Tella, Lucio Fontana, 1966, no. 41
Milan, Il Pilastro, Lucio Fontana, 1985, n.p., illustrated
Varese, Varese Incontri, Lucio Fontana, 1985, no. 62, illustrated in colour
Turin, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Lucio Fontana. La cultura dell'occhio, 1986, pp. 57 & 122, no. 40, illustrated in colour
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou; Barcelona, Fundacio Caixa de Pensions; Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lucio Fontana: 1899-1968, 1987-88, p. 103, illustrated (Paris), p. 208, no. 71, illustrated in colour (Barcelona), pp. 70 & 108, no. 74, illustrated in colour (Amsterdam and London)
Milan, Palazzo della Permanente, Pittura a Milano 1945-1990, 1992, pp. 87 & 212, no. 51, illustrated
Cherasco, Palazzo Salmatoris, I Grandi Maestri della Pittura Internazionale da Picasso a Fontana, 2003

Art International, Summer 1966, no. X-6, p. 61, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, pp. 120-121, no. 62 O 66, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, p. 404, no. 62 O 66, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Vol. II, Milan 2006, p. 590, no. 62 O 66, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in good condition. There is stable and sound craquelure throughout. There are very minor losses along the extreme lower edge. Examined under ultra violet light, restoration is apparent at the two top corner tips, towards the edges of the centre slashes, towards the lower left edge and the upper right corner.
"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."

Concetto Spaziale introduces a vision of large ambitions, executed with exceptional beauty and pr⛦esence, and its commanding scale makes it literally stanꦿd out among Fontana's gorgeous sequence of lustrous oils from the early 1960s. Furthermore, with its tactile surface, the present piece handles fundamental Modernist question as to the status of the artist's touch: without doubt, Fontana's background as a sculptor reinvigorated the importance of facture within conceptual art, and nowhere is it better materialised than in the present piece, a triumphant meeting place for the solid and the void, the tactile and the abstract.

Here the sheer energy of Fontana's process harnesses an enigmatic combination of violence and delicacy. The sheen of the oil paint lends the piece a vitality enhanced by the rosy pigment, and immediately the piece commands a thrilling juxtaposition of delicate colouring and the violation inflicted by the artist. Fontana has torn holes in the canvas and then thrust his hands in while the paint was still wet. He has dragged his fingers through the paint, in towards the gashes, loading the piece with a gravitational pull towards the centre. The look towards outer space is focussed by the circular form that orbits the eruption of holes in the middle. By 1961, with Yuri Gagarin launched as the first person into space, Spatialism was confirmed as one of the most momentous concepts of the twentieth century art theory, regarding art as a channel for the concerns of mankind on the most universal scale. 'The discovery of the Cosmos is a new dimension, it is the Infinite: so I make a hole in the canvas, which is the basis for all previous art, to search for an infinite dimension, an X which for me is the basis of all Contemporary Art' (Fontana interviewed by Carla Lonzi in Carla Lonzi, Autoritratto, Bari 1969, p.169).

The artist's return to Italy from Buenos Ares in 1947 had marked the beginning of a move towards abstraction, turning his back on figurative art and painterly convention to the point that even the two-dimensional plane was not enough. Fixated on the principle that in the space age the artwork should dynamically transform the space by which it is defined, he was spurred to produce an astonishingly forceful series w🌌orks in a range of media and underpinned by a rare conceptual integrity, from 'Buchi' (holes) to 'Pietre' (stones), 'Gessi' (chalks), 'Inchiostri' (inks), 'Tagli' (cuts) and 'Nature' (natures). The formal purity running through each sequence brings out the idiosyncrasy of the given material, by which the classic epithet of modernist sculpture, 'truth to materials', is channelled into the conceptual realm.

The twin holes in the present piece act as loci for the twin concerns of painting and sculpture: 'Sculpture and painting are both things of the past...we need a new form. Art that's movement. Art within space.' (Hedy. A. Giusti, 'But Nobody Mentions Milan Art', Rome Daily American 9 July 1954, in Anthony White, 'Lucio Fontana: Between Utopia and Kitsch' in Grey Room no. 5, Autumn 2001, p.56). Fontana is making a return to oil on canvas in conscious reassessment of the💎 fallen condition of painting. Feeling his way between paint and form, the canvas becomes a three-dimensional site for their conjunction. The oil paint itself becomes a sculptural material, dragged by the artist's fingers in sensual furrows towards the gaps. A piece that explores the rebirth of painting and sculpture as one, Fontana appears to be ripping through the pink icing on a birthday cake in an extraordinary celebration of his conceptual breakthrough.

The holes are on the one hand life enhancing, oozing creation, and on the other, deeply sublime, invoking notions of the void that extend way beyond the physical constraints of conventional easel painting. Above all, it acts as a portal beyond the gallery walls; it is a double window opening out as a thoughtful reincarnation of Duchamp's landmark in conceptual art, Fresh Widow,1920, a miniature French window whose panes are filled in with black leather. Whereas Duchamp blocked off the illusory capacity of the picture plane, Fontana extends the concept, by giving birth to an idea through Caesarean, and asserting the very act of making art to be an artificial b🔯irth. The dark holes in the pink surface combiꦺne notions of femininity with womanliness, present and outer space, the beginning and the end.

Ultimately the canvas here documents Fontana's ability to seize hold of an idea, and to visualise it in terms that are both visceral and powerfully muscular. The physicality of his conceptual process, reaꦺlized with unerring tactility, endures in what amounts to a ꦇprofoundly moving visual experience.