SLITS, CUTS AND HOLES YES - BUT NO PRECONCEIVED IDEAS PLEASE
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| Spacial concept 1966 |
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| Soacial concept 1965 |
I’m pretty sure that it was Michel Werner the German collector whose first painting or « slit » was a Fontana. I admit that when I saw this, I frankly asked myself « what on earth compelled him to buy that and become a collector because of it? » The explanations at the exhibition in question didn’t clarify too much.
It’s a little like Cy Twombly (my previous chapter). I am not too keen on his squiggles, but there are paintings belonging to the 1950/60 period, I like a lot. The energy most of all.
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| 1951+Min-Oe |
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| 1961 Ferragosto IV |
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| 1961+Untitled |
So as always I was going off with the usual pre-conceived ideas and wondering if there just could be something that I might discover and like…..
And how…
When I walked into the first gallery, I turned around and went out. This was not Lucio Fontana. However, there was no mistaking the indications on the entrance wall that it was. I had not made a mistake and Lucio Fontana was in the usual temporary galleries.
But when you see this -
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| THE HARPOONER 1933-34 |
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| THE HARPOONER 1933-34 |
| and then the gallery opens up into this - be honest with me, what would you think? |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bust of a woman on the right |
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| SAINT GEORGES 1935 |
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| BLACK FIGURES 1931 |
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| MARY 1926-27 |
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| OLYMPIC CHAMPION 1932 |
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| FIRST GALLERY |
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| FIRST GALLERY |
first thing and then the gallery opens up into this - be honest with me, what would you think?
Fontana is still best known today for his Cuts, slashed canvasses whose combinations of painting and sculpture made them icons of the 20th century radical innovation. He experimented and created environments which were and are still disturbing, from my point of view, and I am not alone. In my book, this extreme freedom of gesture sometimes brought his work to the verge of kitsch.
Now let’s go back to the beginning and that startling encounter with someone I knew nothing about. It starts with a period called Primitivism - 1930-1933. This is a figurative style unrelated to any previous art movement of that period or before. Schematic human figures made of painted wood or plaster. At the same time his was experimenting making human figures in bronze. So you saw those above.
Then later, there is a small group of abstract sculptures which I loved - kinds of « drawings in space » . Apparently he never returned to this kind of work and destroyed most of it even knowing that it was of an innovative character.
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| ABSTRACT SCULPTURE 1950 |
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| ABSTRACT SCULPTURE 1934 _ REDONE 1960 |
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| ABSTRACT SCULPTURE 1934 ° REDONE 1950 |
Now come the ceramics. 1936-1940. I am bowled over. With a few of the abstract sculptures, I thought I could see where he was going - but here I found figuration in subjects both small and large and rough - a little like my daughter does….This has nothing to do with the artist I know. I stare - I go around them - I tried to compare with something I knew - nothing came to mind….
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| DRAGON 1949-1950 |
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| ITALIQUE TORSO 1938 |
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| PULPE AND CORAL 1937 |
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| BUTTERFLIES 1937 |
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| FIGURES LYING DOWN 1939 |
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| YOUNG GIRL SITTING DOWN 1934 |
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| HOSPITALITY 1940 |
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| PORTRAIT OF TERESITA 1940 |
By 1946 he had become fascinated by the exploration of the cosmos….something else was beginning to happen….
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| SPATIAL ENVIRONMENT 1952 |
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| SPACIAL ENVIRONMENT 1949 |
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| BLACK ENVIRONMENT 1948-49 |
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| SPACIAL ENVIRONMENT IN BLACK LIGHT 1948-49 |
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| SPACIAL ENVIRONMENT IN BLACK LIGHT 1948-4 |
Then of course, there is the turning point. Holes. Around 1949-1952. These are what he termed as his « Spatialist » works. He began with a cycle of holes which in one form or another he would continue for the rest of his life. Punching his canvasses from both sides, he would create different forms, circles, spirals, lines, zigzags….This was NOT a destructive gesture. The hole was a means of letting the light and shade though. It was also a sculptural technique as he applied it to other materials such as terra-cotta and metal. After 1949, almost all his works were titled Spacial Concept (Concetto spaziale). A way of bringing all his media together as the expression of a single idea.
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT , BREAD |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1956 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1958 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1956 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, FORM 1958 |
Everything was tried. paper mounted on canvas then punctures, scratched and finally slashed. Monochromes. Let’s face it and I had never thought of it before today, there is an erotic charge if slits stripped of all expressive intent as we know it.
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, EXPECTATIONS 1959 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, FORM 1957 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, EXPECTATIONS 1959 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, THE QUANTA 1960 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, EXPECTATIONS 1958 |
He was constantly addressing the issue of space. On canvasses and environments. Architecture (which was apparently of great importance to him). Religion is omnipresent in his work and combined with the Spacial Concepts there seems to be a thinking which is rather strange for me - practically esoteric.
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| SPACIAL COCNEPT 1953, OIL, BROKEN GLASS AND HOLES |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1949 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1954 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1956 OIL, MIXED TECHNIQUES, SPARKLES AND HOLES |
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| MAQUETTE FOR THE cATHERDRAL DOOR IN MILAN 1951-52-61. DOOR AT LEFT |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT ,nature 1959 _ YOU WOULD SAY TWO PROFILES;;;; |
By the 1960’s, he was producing his Spacial Concepts at the rate of some 150 per year. Not all are the same, but some a spattered with fragments of Murano glass or he goes as far as perforating copper, brass and aluminum….
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| The Moon in Venise 1961 |
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| SUN ON THE SAINT-MARC SQUARE 1961 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1960 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, VENISE MOON 1961 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 1965 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT, EXPECTATIONS 1959 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT 196 |
There are fewer and fewer spectators in the galleries…..
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| holes in alu |
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| holes in alu |
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| A window and no-one but me looking |
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| on the wall in the window |
In the final years, 1963-1967, Luis Fontana made 38 Fine di Dio (The End of God). Life has now become conjured up in egg shaped, punctures, human sized, vividly monochrome canvasses that are sometimes spattered with glitter. The big holes look like craters bursting out of the surface of paint. Is this infinity? Why the end of God? There is no doubt though that religion has played an important part in his work.
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT; THE END OF GOD 1963 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT; THE END OF GOD 1963 |
At the end of his story, he had his brightly coloured works made for him in wood or metal. There are 181 (but not here) Teatrini, Small Theatres which are, we are told, reinterpretations of the main themes of his oeuvres. Spatialism has now become mechanical and reproduced and yet these last works, I really like a lot. They have the abstract shapes which « turn into something » and that always pleases me.
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT , LITTLE THEATRE 1965 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT , LITTLE THEATRE 1966 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT , LITTLE THEATRE 1965 |
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| SPACIAL CONCEPT , LITTLE THEATRE 1965 |
He wasn’t only cutting and slitting holes in canvasses. On Sunday mornings his recreation of those years was to paint nudes….apparently this had a calming effect!
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| FEMALE NUDE 1960-64 |
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| FEMALE NUDE 1960-64 |
I now understand more - and am amazed at the diversity of his work. When it is not so minimalist, I like it and can enter into this splits and holes - but often I cannot…..but please, do not have pre-conceived ideas about Lucio Fontana.
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