• Concetto spaziale, La luna a Venezia [Spacial Concept, The Moon in Venice]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Concetto spaziale, La luna a Venezia [Spacial Concept, The Moon in Venice]
    Date(s) : 1961
    Medium : 150 x 150 cm / 59 x 59 in
    Material : Acrylic, glass, and holes on canvas
    Credit : Archivio Patrimonio Artistico Intesa Sanpaolo Photo: Studio Vandrasch, Milano
  • Concetto spaziale [Spacial Concept]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Concetto spaziale [Spacial Concept]
    Date(s) : 1961-1962
    Medium : 38 x 28.5 cm / 15 x 11 1/4 in
    Material : Slipped terracotta and cuts
  • Concetto spaziale [Spatial Concept]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Concetto spaziale [Spatial Concept]
    Date(s) : 1968
    Medium : 20 x 56 x 6 cm / 7 7/8 x 22 x 2 3/8 in
    Material : Lacquered metal and cut
    Credit : Photo: Riccardo Gasperoni
  • Concetto spaziale, Ellisse  [Spatial Concept, Ellipse]]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Concetto spaziale, Ellisse [Spatial Concept, Ellipse]]
    Date(s) : 1967
    Medium : 173 x 72 cm / 68 1/8 x 28 3/8 in
    Material : Lacquered wood and holes
  • Ritratto di Teresita [Portrait of Teresita]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Ritratto di Teresita [Portrait of Teresita]
    Date(s) : 1949
    Medium : 70 x 45 x 31 cm / 27 1/2 x 17 3/4 x 12 1/4 in
    Material : Glazed and lustered terracotta and topaz
    Credit : Photo: Daniele De Lonti
  • Scultura spaziale [Spatial Sculpture]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Scultura spaziale [Spatial Sculpture]
    Date(s) : 1947
    Medium : 59 x 50 cm / 23 1/4 x 19 5/8 in
    Material : Bronze
    Credit : Photo: Daniele De Lonti
  • Pianta di New York di notte [Map of New York by Night]
    Artist : Lucio Fontana
    Title : Pianta di New York di notte [Map of New York by Night]
    Date(s) : 1960-1961
    Medium : 21.6 x 28 cm / 8 1/2 x 11 in
    Material : Ballpoint pen on paper
    Credit : Photo: Francesca Pellacini
  • Lucio Fontana with works from the series Nature, Paris, Galerie Iris Clert
    Title : Lucio Fontana with works from the series Nature, Paris, Galerie Iris Clert
    Date(s) : 1961
    Credit : © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2014.R.20) Photo: Shunk-Kender
  • Installation view of the exhibition Fontana, David Anderson Gallery, New York, November–December 1961
    Title : Installation view of the exhibition Fontana, David Anderson Gallery, New York, November–December 1961
  • Credit : Courtesy Fondazione Lucio Fontana by SIAE 2022 Hauser & Wirth publishers


Lucio Fontana: Sculpture | Exhibition and Book Release | Hauser & Wirth, New York

Hauser & Wirth 69th Street, New York, 10021

until, 4 February 2023

From the press release

‘And what if he had only been a sculptor?’ —Enrico Crispolti, 2007

Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ substantial new publication on Lucio Fontana (1899 – 1968) charts the uncategorizable artist’s exploration of sculpture from the 1920s until his death in 1968. In this first scholarly monograph in English devoted to Fontana’s sculptural production, various bodies of work from different periods are considered together, highlighting continuity and evolution in the oeuvre of the Italian master. Characterized by a pioneering approach, the publication reveals the full range of Fontana’s experimentation through new essays, archival images and the artist’s own illustrations.

This richly illustrated volume allows readers to discover Fontana’s rarely seen sculptural works, which will be exhibited at Hauser & Wirth New York, 69th Street from November 2022 through February 2023. Curated by leading Fontana scholar Luca Massimo Barbero in collaboration with Fondazione Lucio Fontana, this show is the second part of a trilogy of exhibitions dedicated to the radical Italian artist and will take place at the gallery’s uptown location—the very same building where, in 1961, Fontana’s work was shown for the first time in the United States.

Fontana was always determined to go beyond the confines of genres, challenging the canonical distinction between painting and sculpture. Constantly in dialogue with color, the artist experimented with terra-cotta, clay, plaster, metal and concrete, incorporating the conquest of space as a key element of his artistic practice. Although best known for his Cuts series (‘Tagli’), slashed paintings created in the 1950s and 1960s that became symbolic of the post-war era, sculpture was immensely important to Fontana’s working methods and pivotal to his trajectory as an artist—some of the artist’s very first explorations of spatial concepts occurred in clay before ever being realized on canvas.

The publication starts with an introduction by the Foundation’s former president Paolo Laurini and includes a biographical essay by the Foundation’s Maria Villa, with an in-depth examination of the artist’s sculptural practice. In a substantial essay, Luca Massimo Barbero explores Fontana’s constant and vocational experimentations with different materials over the decades. The text is accompanied by a host of archival material and numerous illustrations of sculptures, revealing Fontana’s vast sculptural oeuvre and the artist’s creative process. In her art historical analysis, scholar Cristina Beltrami looks back on the early years of Fontana’s career, characterized by a highly personal and groundbreaking style that places him among the pioneers of European sculpture.

This publication is a companion volume to ‘Lucio Fontana: Walking the Space: Spatial Environments, 1948– 1968,’ which was published on the occasion of an exhibition by the same name at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles in spring 2020, documenting the first comprehensive presentation of Fontana’s ground-breaking Spatial Environments.

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