Lucio Fontana is one of the key figures in 20th-century art. His work was ground-breaking for many generations of artists, and still is today. For the first time in almost 30 years in Germany, this exhibition shows the full extent of his achievement. Selected works trace an arc from the 1930s to Fontana’s death in 1968, from the drawing to the spatial installation.
Fontana’s central theme is space. From 1946 onward he titled the majority of his works Concetto spaziale (Spatial Concept). Together with like-minded artists he declared spatial work – ‘spazialismo’ – to be the art form of the present in a series of manifestos.
Fontana understood his work as a proposal to reconceive and profoundly re-experience space through artistic means. He was inspired in this by advances in modern science and technology, which he followed closely. He was particularly preoccupied with astronomy and space travel. He exploded familiar forms in many ways, worked with unusual materials and shifted the boundaries of the traditional genres.
The exhibition’s subtitle, Expectation, refers to Fontana’s most well-known series of slashed canvases, which he ambiguously named Attesa (Expectation). With a particular clarity they embody his fascination with space and his aspiration to head out for the new and expansive.
