Lucio Fontana

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Lucio Fontana in his studio in Milan, photographed by Lothar Wolleh , 1968

Lucio Fontana (born February 19, 1899 in Rosario , Argentina ; † September 7, 1968 in Comabbio near Varese ) was an Italian avant-garde artist of the first post-war generation, who became world-famous for his cutting patterns.

Life

In 1905 Fontana moved with his Italian parents - his father was a sculptor - from Argentina to Milan . He studied at the building trade school in Milan from 1914 to 1915 and became a qualified engineer in 1918. From 1922 on, Fontana lived in Argentina again for a few years, worked in his father's sculptor studio and worked there briefly as an engineer and longer as a sculptor.

In 1928 he returned to Italy and studied at the Accademia di Brera in Milan as a student of Adolfo Wildt . The sculptural works of this time show a preference for clear contours and a two-dimensional structure.

In 1930 Fontana had his first solo exhibition in the “Galleria del Milione” in Milan and took part in the 17th Venice Biennale . In 1934 he joined the Paris artist group Abstraction-Création , whose section he founded together with Melotti, Soldati and Veronesi. In 1935 he began to work with ceramics and from 1936 worked for the Sèvres manufacture . From 1939 he lived in Argentina again for a few years, settling in Buenos Aires in 1940 , where he taught at the Altamira art school he founded. In 1947 he returned to Milan.

Concetto spaziale 'Natura
(1959/1960), in the Beeldenpark of the Kröller-Müller Museum , Otterlo

In 1946 Fontana initiated the “Manifesto bianco” (“White Manifesto)”, which took up the ideas of futurism , proposed a synthesis of painting, sculpture, music and poetry and called for a departure from conventional materials. "In 1948 he organized the artist group" Movimento spaziale (spatial art) "and published the 1st and 2nd manifestos of" Spazialismo "." With these manifestos, he assumed that all static art forms would end in 1947 through dynamic art should be replaced. The work should work solely from the imagination of the viewer, in that it should be “freed from all painterly and propagandistic rhetoric”. Fontana implemented this new spatial concept by perforating pictures and thus achieving plasticity instead of a two-dimensional work. The hole pattern was mostly created on monochrome pictures, there was no limit to the surface. In both painting and sculpture, space should be viewed as a "freely unfolding, unlimited continuum". From then on, the artist named his work “Concetto spaziale” (“spatial concept”). The year 1949 marked a turning point in his artistic work, the first Buchi (holes) appeared. In the Pietre series in the early 1950s, he provided them with colored pieces of glass in order to enhance the spatiality and the light effect of the surface. From 1958 he began creating Tagli , pictures with cuts on the canvas, which were underlaid with gauze to increase the spatial effect. The cuts were made unconsciously at first, but later systematically with a knife from the front or back of the canvas. In doing so, he destroyed the image carrier and thus the basic condition of traditional painting. Fontana is identified with this group of works Tagli to this day . His Cube di Luce. Lichtkubus, from the years 1959/60 is an example of his work with neon light. His ambience spaziale (space-related installations), e.g. B. Ambiente nero from 1948/1949 are considered to be the first environments of modern art. The beginning of the series Fine di Dio , Das Ende Gottes, from 1963 shows monochrome, oval paintings that are provided with holes or cuts.

The general reduction of his work to a single group of works does not do the artist justice, given the great variety of materials, motifs, shapes, colors and different genres of art used. Fontana was primarily a sculptor, but also a painter, inventor, ceramicist, light artist and space specialist. With his work he inspired the artist group ZERO , the movement des Nouveau Réalisme and Arte Povera .

Exhibitions

Between 1950 and 1954 Fontana took part in the 25th and 27th Venice Biennale and in 1959 in the 5th São Paulo Biennale . He was also represented at documenta II in 1959 , the 4th documenta in 1968 and at numerous other international exhibitions. After his death, his works were shown in 1977 at documenta 6 in Kassel , an exhibition in the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 1983 and in the Lenbachhaus in Munich in 1998.

Awards

  • 1942: First prize for sculpture at the XXXII National Salon of Fine Arts.
  • 1962: Premio Marzotto

Works (selection)

Coccodrillo in the museum garden of the Giuseppe Mazzotti Manifattura Ceramiche factory
Concetto Spaziale Sferico , Terracotta, 1957, Museo internazionale delle ceramiche, Faenza
  • Torso di cavallo , 1929, bronze, silver-colored metal coating, patinated. In: A forest of sculptures - Simon Spierer Collection , Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt
  • Coccodrillo , ceramic crocodile, made in several copies in the presence of the artist between 1935 and 1937 at the Italian company Giuseppe Mazzotti Manifattura Ceramiche . A large copy is in the museum garden of the former factory.
  • Ambiente nero (black ambience), 1948–1949, design for Ambiente spaziale a luce nera (ambience spaziale with UV light), colored ink on photo, 21 × 17.5 cm, Milan, Fondazione Lucio Fontana
  • Busto di donna , 1949, terracotta bust painted in gold. Dorotheum, Vienna 2015.
  • Concetto spaziale , 1949, paper on canvas, perforated, 100 × 100 cm.
  • Struttura al neon par IX Triennale di Milano , neon structure, 1951, neon tube diameter 18 cm, length 100 m
  • Concetto Spaziale , 1956, oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, Villa Grisebach , Berlin 2011
  • Concetto spaciale, Nature , Raumkonzept, Naturen, 1959–1960, terracotta, diameter 92–102 cm, Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie
  • Achrome , 1958, Karolin and fabric on canvas, 80 × 100 cm
  • Cubo di Luce (Struttura luminosa) , light cube, luminous structure, 1959–1960, 80 neon bars on metal construction, 160 × 160 × 160 cm, Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus
  • Concetto spaciale, Attese , 1959, expectation, blue ink, sections on canvas, 82 × 116 cm, Munich, Pinakothek der Moderne
  • Concetto spaziale, 59 T 42 , 1959, yellow tempera and cuts on canvas, 42 × 64 cm.
  • Concetto spaziale, 60 0 75 , 1960, oil on canvas, 55 × 45 cm.
  • Concetto spaziale - Attese , 1960, oil on canvas, 92 × 73 cm, Städel , Frankfurt (ill.) .
  • Concetto spaziale - Attesa , 1960, watercolor on canvas, partly backed with black gauze, 81 × 65 cm, Ketterer.
  • Concetto spaziale , 1961/62, lean oil and holes on canvas, 73 × 61 cm, MAGI '900 , Pieve di Cento , Bologna.
  • Concetto spaziale, New York 9 , 1962, copper with cuts and graffiti, 64 × 65 cm, Cassano d'Adda, private collection.
  • Concetto spaziale, New York 10 , 1962, copper with slits and perforations, 234 × 282 cm, Munich, Pinakothek der Moderne, on loan from the Fondazione Lucio Fontana.
  • Concetto spaziale, New York 26 , 1962, copper with holes and drills, from the Lenz Schönberg collection.
  • Concetto spaziale, la Fino di Dio , spatial concept, Das Ende Gottes, 1963, oil, cracks, holes and graffiti on canvas, 178 × 123 cm, Germany, private collection.
  • Concetto spaziale , spatial concept, 1964, perforated copper sheet, from the Lenz Schönberg collection.
  • Concetto spaziale, Ellisse , Raumkonzept, Elipse, 1967, lacquered wood, 173 × 72 cm, Brussels, Galerie Francoise Mayer.
  • Ambiente spaziale bianco , 1968, wood and plaster panel, 330 × 525 × 440 cm, plaster panel 246 × 51 cm, Kassel, documenta 4.
  • Concetto spaciale , 1967, black lacquered metal with holes on an integrated bracket, 200 × 14 × 14 cm, Milan, Fondazione Lucio Fontana.
  • Concetto spaziale. Attesa , 1968, oil on canvas, Tornabuoni Art, Paris.

literature

Web links

Commons : Lucio Fontana  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carla Schulz-Hoffmann: Lucio Fontana . Prestel, Munich and Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7913-0662-6 , p. 7.
  2. ↑ Lexicon of Art. Vol. 2, p. 549. VEB EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 1989.
  3. ↑ Jordan, Lenz (ed.): The 100 of the century. Painter . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-16456-6 , p. 54 f.
  4. ^ Carla Schulz-Hoffmann: Lucio Fontana . Prestel, Munich and Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7913-0662-6 , p. 131.
  5. ^ Carla Schulz-Hoffmann: Lucio Fontana . Prestel, Munich and Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7913-0662-6 , p. 112.
personal data
SURNAME Fontana, Lucio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Rosario
DATE OF DEATH 7th September 1968
Place of death Comabbio near Varese