Lucio Fontana

signed, titled and inscribed l.Fontana Concetto Spaziale ATTESE sono stato a colazione con Maria Papa (on the reverse)

55.2 by 46 cm. 21¾ by 18 in.

Galerie Europe, Paris

Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above in 1974)

Private Collection, Paris

Private Collection

Christie's, London, 13 February 2014, Lot 28

Private Collection, New York

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Generale, vol. II , Milan 1986, no. 64-65 T 4, p. 546. illustrated

E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculpture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 64-65 T 4, p. 733, illustrated

It is in the striking interplay between the pristine white surface and the stark void of the cuts that Concetto Spaziale, Attese captures the most potent expression of Lucio Fontana's Tagli series. Here, the three, decisive slashes slices through a luminous, untouched expanse - a metaphysical no-man's-land, detached from any conventional sense of time or place. Fontana himself chose white for its clarity and conceptual purity, calling it the 'purest, least complicated, most understandable colour' a direct conduit for 'pure simplicity, 'pure philosophy', and above all, a' cosmic philosophy' that guided his thinking in the final years of his life. (Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures et Environments Spatiaux, Vol. I , Brussels 1974, p. 137)

It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that Fontana relied exclusively on this bold pairing of white ground and black cut for his installation at the XXXIII Venice Biennale in 1966, a presentation that earned him the prestigious Grand Prize for painting. With its dramatic energy, refined palette, and prominent scale, Concetto Spaziale, Attese stands as a quintessential embodiment of Fontana's radical vision.

Driven by a desire to transcend the flat confines of the canvas and articulate a new spatial dimension, Fontana's practice marked a revolutionary shift in the trajectory of contemporary art. The present work gives form to the artist's Spatialist ideals - a philosophical framework that rejected traditional understandings of space and time in favor of a new, fourth dimension. Fontana outlined this in his first manifesto written in 1946, the Manifesto Blanco, which was an artistic theory putting forth the revolutionary tagli (cuts), and its predecessor the buchi (holes). It is within this academic framework that Fontana presented the notion of Spazialismo, or Spatialism: an intellectual theory that sought to engage technology and find expression for a fourth dimension in art, that of space-time. Echoing a disposition influenced by Futurism, Fontana stated, 'We refuse to think of science and art as two distinct phenomena. Artists anticipate scientific deeds, scientific deeds always provoke artistic deeds' (Lucio Fontana, Primo Manifesto dello Spazialismo (First Spatialist Manifesto), 1947, in: Exh. Cat., London, Hayward Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1999-2000, p. 185). Fontana's intervention into the canvas through calculated, vertical slashes was as transformative as Jackson Pollock's dynamic manipulation of paint; both artists ruptured the traditional grammar of painting. But where Pollock layered and built upon the canvas surface, Fontana subverted it altogether -his act was one of piercing, tearing, and releasing.

Fontana's lifelong fascination with the cosmos and the unknown continually shaped his creative approach. The tagli series first began in the autumn of 1958 and occupied Fontana until his death in 1968. Consequently, these paintings developed and transcended alongside the surge in scientific breakthroughs and follow the arc of the scientific trajectory of Albert Einstein's 1916 Theory of Relativity and Ernest Rutherford's 1919 atom-splitting experiment, through to Georges Lemaître's 1931 proposal of the Big Bang Theory, culminating in man's inaugural voyage into space with Yuri Gagarin's historic journey in 1961. Fontana aligned his work with the era's astronomical aspirations, framing his gestures as artistic equivalents of cosmic exploration, 'The discovery of the Cosmos is that of a new dimension, it is the Infinite,' he declared. 'Thus I pierce this canvas, which is the basis of all arts, and I have created an infinite dimension' an x which for me is the basis of all Contemporary Art.' (Lucio Fontana quoted in: Exh. Cat., Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Collection (and travelling), Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006, p. 19).

Fontana frequently tagged the reverse of his works with inscriptions, occasionally showcasing quirky arithmetic or stream-of-consciousness reflections from his daily life. A personal encounter documented by the artist, Concetto Spaziale, Attese is annotated with: ' WAIT I had breakfast with Maria Papa', referencing the artist's close artist relationship with the Polish artist Maria Papa Rostkowska. The two artists were connected through the art scene in both Paris and Milan and were both interested in experimenting with matter and space within their practice. In Concetto Spaziale, Attese, the immaculate surface and the precision of the cut coalesce into an image of startling intensity and philosophical depth. The result is a work that gestures beyond itself 'toward infinity, toward the sublime' encapsulating Fontana's enduring quest to redefine the boundaries of artistic space.