Fontana, Lucio

Description:

Rosario de Santa Fe, 1899 - Comabbio, 1968
33 x 22 cm, R.
"Concetto spaziale, Attesa", 1962/1963. Water-based paint (idropittura) on canvas with a cut backed by black gauze. Signed, titled and inscribed "1 + 1 - A" in black felt-tip pen on the reverse.
With a photo certificate of authenticity by Teresa Fontana, Fondazione Lucio Fontana.
Crispolti II, 62-63 T 3.
Private collection, Freiburg.
Kunsthaus Lempertz, Köln, auction 520, "Kunst des XX. Jahrhunderts", 30 November 1971, lot 368.
Kunsthandel Brigitte Büdenhölzer, Emmendingen.
Collection Monika and Horst Bülow, Leonberg, acquired there in 1986.
With "Concetto spaziale, Attesa", we encounter one of Lucio Fontana’s most iconic works - a landmark transition from classical painting to an entirely new artistic dimension. The canvas, a radiant monochrome red, is traversed by a single precise cut. This "taglio" pierces not only the physical surface but the traditional conception of painting as a purely visual or narrative carrier. The cut opens space - literally and metaphorically - expressing a new aesthetic reality that engages time, light, and space.
Here painting sheds mere materiality and becomes a three-dimensional object in the physical world. Backed with black gauze, the cut is not an act of destruction but a generative intervention: a precise, almost meditative operation that turns the canvas into a kind of portal. Fontana described the act as the opposite of impulse - decisions for a cut were often preceded by hours or days of consideration: "Sie glauben, es sei einfach, einen Schnitt oder ein Loch zu machen, aber das stimmt nicht. Sie haben keine Vorstellung, wie viel ich wegwerfe. Die Idee muss mit Präzision umgesetzt werden." (G. Ballo, "Lucio Fontana", New York 1971)
Execution followed a clear sequence: the canvas was primed with white emulsion and allowed to partially dry before the incision was made with a precise blade; during final drying the cut was gently opened by the artist’s hand - the moment of creation inscribed permanently in the surface.
Born in 1899 in Rosario (Argentina), Fontana lived and worked largely in Milan. With the founding of Spatialism in 1947, he articulated in the "Manifesto spaziale" a vision that shattered classical conceptions of art. He called for freeing art from matter and for a contemporary expression that anchors the eternal in the fleeting: "Was wir wollen, ist, die Kunst von der Materie zu befreien, das Gefühl des Ewigen von der Sorge um das Unsterbliche zu lösen. Und es ist uns gleichgültig, ob eine Geste einen Moment oder ein Jahrtausend lebt - wir sind zutiefst überzeugt, dass sie, einmal vollzogen, ewig ist." (E. Crispolti et al., "Lucio Fontana", Mailand 1998)
This work is not only a masterpiece of postwar art but also a rare opportunity to encounter a Fontana canvas on the German auction market. In its immaculate execution, conceptual depth, and integration of real space, it stands as an exemplar of the radical thinking of one of the 20th century’s foremost avant-gardists.