Carla Lonzi, Turin
Studio Casoli, Milan
Brerarte, Milan, March 21, 1988, Lot 177
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo Generale, Vol. II, Milan, 1986, cat. no. 63 T 40, p. 460, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. II, Milan, 2006, cat. no. 63 T 40, p. 645, illustrated

 

This painting is in excellent condition. Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is framed in a brushed silver wooden frame under Plexiglas.
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.

Lucio Fontana’s rhythmic and elegant Concetto Spaziale, Attese comprises a majestic progression of assured incisions across a pristine red canvas: an archetypal exemplar of the artist’s famed Tagli series rendered in its most sought-after color. The sheer vitality of the intense scarlet pigment is immediately impactful, its saturated power amplified through contrast with the plunging black voids. Bristling with connotative energy, this canvas is charged with the red of passion and action – of warmth, danger, and violence. Its abundant richness is only tempered by the punctuating presence of five deep slashes, each imbued with the subtlest of cursive curves and, as a group, seeming to lengthen and amplify from left to right, as if part of an immutable crescendo of beauty and brutality.

The artistic theory behind the creation of the Tagli (cuts) was professed in Fontana’s first manifesto, the Manifiesto Bianco, published in 1946. Here Fontana proposed the birth of a new Spatialist art, which sought to articulate the fourth dimension. In this quest, Fontana proposed the artist as the source of creative energy, anticipating future events and engaging with technological advancement; asserting that the artist’s work should aspire to enlighten ordinary people to the possibilities offered by their environment and society. Thus, ever since first puncturing a canvas in 1949, the artist had been singularly committe🍌d to the Spatialist mission to explore the conceptual depths beyond the limits of the two-dimensional picture plan🧔e.

By the 1960s, Fontana’s practice of breaking through the canvas and into a heretofore unexplored territory beyond had gained newfound relevance alongside ground-breaking concurrent advances in space travel. The ‘Space Race’ had established the moon as the next frontier for human exploration and dominated the global political zeitgeist. As such, Fontana was at pains to emulate this scientific paradigm shift in his artistry: just as Yuri Gagarin broke through the atmosphere to reveal the void behind it, Fontana irrevocably changed the course of art. To this end, the telleta (the strips of black gauze positioned behind each cut) are as central to the interpretation of this work as the narrow slits themselves. They imply the blackness of space and the insurmountable nothingness of the cosmological void. Fontana was explicit with regard to his emulation of the cosmic explorations of his era, and confident in the implication that his actions had for the course of art history: “The discovery of the Cosmos is that of a new dimension, it is the Infinite: thus I pierce the canvas, which is the basis of all arts and I have created an infinite dimension, an x which for me is the basis for all Contemporary Art.” (the artist cited in Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006, p. 19)

Despite these intimations of infinite cosmological serenity, there is also an inherent sense of violence to the present work. The five striations that permeate its surface are unmistakably cuts wrought by a human hand; their wound-like appearance is enhanced by the ineluctable smoothness of the pulsating red pigment, saturating the canvas, and seeping from each cut. In this way, the present work almost appears as a contemporary echo of the wounds of Christ on the cross. Christian art delivered the message of salvation through sacrifice, just as in Fontana’s work it is only by enacting the violence on an unblemished surface that the intimation of a new dimension can be attained. Thus, in a manner typical of his subversive artistic voice, in Concetto Spaziale, Attese, Fontana denigrated the techniques of the Christian art tradition▨ – perspectival recession, oil paint modelling – whilst simultaneously updating anꦯd recapitulating that Christian notion of achieving transfiguration through pain and sacrifice.