Lucio Fontana: At the Roots of Spatialism

This exhibition catalog and collection is designed to provide the public with a better understanding and appreciation of an artist who, amongst the Masters and avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, was at the forefront of research and formal experimentation. His relentless investigation began in the thirties and continued for the rest of his life; it focused on finding dimensions, “spaces” and new shapes.Yet despite all this, it took a long time for Lucio Fontana’s work to capture the attention of the discerning American public, initially enthralled by the European modernism of the French school. This selection of works illustrates the progress and evolution of Fontana’s research on signs and matter. The exhibition combines his aperture towards the modern movement while he was in South America with his works inspired by the atmosphere in Milan, based, so to speak, on metaphysical considerations and the practical application of his studies and interiors or on the everyday aesthetics represented by the world of fashion.