Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana – Spatialism
Full Name: Lucio Fontana

Place of Birth: Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina
Nationality: Italian-Argentinian

Artistic Movement: Spatialism, Abstraction-Création, Art Informel
Education: Brera Academy, Milan; student of Adolfo Wildt

Profession: Painter, sculptor, art theorist
Artistic Journey

Lucio Fontana was born in Argentina to Italian parents. His father, Luigi Fontana, was a sculptor, and his mother, Lucia Bottini, was an actress. The family returned to Italy in 1905, where Lucio pursued his artistic education. He served in the army during World War I and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he studied at the Brera Academy in Milan under Adolfo Wildt.
In the 1930s, Fontana emerged as one of the first Italian artists to embrace abstraction. He explored sculpture through terracotta and ceramics, often influenced by Cubism and Futurism. In 1935, he joined the Abstraction-Création group in Paris and participated in international exhibitions.
In 1940, due to World War II, he returned to Argentina, where he founded the Altamira Academy and published the Manifesto Blanco in 1946, calling for a break from traditional art. This manifesto marked the beginning of his Spatialist theory, further developed in a series of manifestos between 1947 and 1952.
Returning to Italy in 1947, Fontana founded the Spatialist movement and began creating works he called Concetti Spaziali (Spatial Concepts), characterized by punctures or slashes on the canvas, exploring the dimensions of space and time in art.
Major Works
Concetto Spaziale, Buchi (1949–1950): Series of perforated canvases, where Fontana punctures the surface to reveal the space beyond—symbolizing an opening to the infinite.
Concetto Spaziale, Attese (1958–1968): Series of slashed canvases, where incisions in monochrome surfaces introduce spatial and temporal dimensions into the artwork.
La Fine di Dio (1963–1964): Series of yellow canvases with slits, considered a metaphor for the end of God and the search for the infinite.
Pietre (1952–1968): Relief sculptures where the canvas is encrusted with colored paste and glass fragments, merging painting with sculpture.
Ambienti Spaziali (1949–1967): Immersive installations using neon and light elements to create spatial environments, challenging the traditional concept of the canvas.
Quote

"In my small discovery—the hole—I didn’t want to decorate a canvas: I broke through that dimension; beyond that hole lies a new freedom for interpreting art, the end of traditional art, of that three-dimensionality, for a dimension that is infinite: it is a journey into the future."
—Lucio Fontana, quoted in Finestre sull’Arte
Notable Exhibitions
Musée Soulages, Rodez (2024): An exhibition highlighting the diversity of Fontana’s work beyond his iconic slashes, including drawings, paintings, ceramics, and light installations.
Frieze Week L.A. (2020): An immersive presentation of his Ambienti Spaziali, offering a sensory experience of his spatial environments.