Lucio Fontana - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Saturday, June 28, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galleria de Triangolo, Rome; Roberto Gigli, Viareggio; Private Collection, Rome; Private Collection, Milan; Private Collection, Hamburg

  • Exhibited

    Paris, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, 21 September- 30 November, 1989; Paris, Galerie Karsten Greve, Lucio Fontana. Peintures et sculptures, 30 November, 1989 - 6 February, 1990

  • Literature

    E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, vol.II, Brussels, 1974, p. 76. no. 60-61 O 4; E. Crispolti, Fontana: Catalogue Generale, vol.I, Milan, 1986, p. 265, no. 60-61 O 4; Exhibition Catalogue, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, Paris, 1989, p. 72 & 73 (illustrated); Exhibition Catalogue, Galerie Karsten Greve, Lucio Fontana. Peintures et sculptures, Paris, 1989, p. 50 & 51 (illustrated); E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Tomo I, Milan 2006, no. 60-61 O 4, p. 431 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    With its somewhat shinny and shimmery surface, the present lot is a prime example of the Fontana’s Olii paintings through which he explored a third dimension through puncturing his canvas.  Lucio Fontana’s respect for the advancements of science and technology during the 20th century led him to approach his art as a series of investigations into a wide variety of mediums and methods. As a sculptor, he experimented with stone, metals, ceramics, and neon; as a painter he attempted to transcend the confines of the two-dimensional surface.  In the mid 1940s, Fontana announced his goals for a ‘spatialist’ art, one that could engage technology to achieve an expression of the fourth dimension. He wanted to meld the categories of architecture, sculpture, and painting to create a groundbreaking new aesthetic idiom.  If through slashing, slicing or puncturing the canvas, Fontana’s constant interaction and dedicated search for a new dimension to painting is exemplified in the present lot. As stated by the artist:  “I do not want to make painting; I want to open up space, create a new dimension for art, tie in with the cosmos, as it endlessly expands beyond the confining plane of the picture.  With my innovation with the whole pierced through the canvas in repetitive formations, I have not attempted to decorate a surface, but on the contrary, I have tried to break its dimensional limitations.  Beyond the perforations, a newly gained freedom of interpretations awaits us…” (Lucio Fontana, 1966)

241

Concetto spaziale (Olii)

1960-61
Oil on canvas (Bronze with multiple holes).
60 x 50 cm. (23 5/8 x 19 5/8 in).
Signed 'l. Fontana' lower right and signed and titled L. Fontana, A924, Concetto Spaziale on the reverse.

Estimate
£350,000 - 450,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2008, 5pm
London