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Lot Essay
‘…figurations of man in space, the anguish that seeks forms and has not yet found them, the fear of getting lost, this line of holes indicates man’s journey in space, these are the forms of the inhabitants of other worlds. I place myself in the position not of an artist, but almost of a scholar, of a researcher who closes himself in the world’
L. Fontana
‘I was thinking of those worlds, of the moon with these holes, this terrible silence that causes us anguish, and the astronauts in a new world. And so in the artist's fantasy these immense things have been there for billions of years man arrives, in mortal silence in this anguish, and leaves a vital sign of his arrival they were these still forms with a sign of wanting to make the inert matter live, weren't they?'
L. Fontana
With its lacquered frame gleaming around the white, monochrome canvas, which is punctured with a solitary constellation-like trail of holes, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino perfectly demonstrates the mysterious and magical combination of Spatialism and lyricism that was embodied in Lucio Fontana's celebrated teatrini or 'Little Theatres'. Begun in 1964, when Fontana stood at the peak of his prolific and innovative career, the teatrini saw the artist create another visual incarnation of Spatialism, the radical movement he had founded in the 1940s. Combining a sense of the bold and stylised figuration of Pop art, the prevailing artistic tendency of the time, with his lifelong dedication to the evocation of space, both physical and metaphorical, these playful works present theatrically framed windows into space. As he explained in his own words, they were a type of, ‘realistic Spatialism…Also a little bit in the fashion of these Pop Art things…but still in my way. They were forms that Man imagines in space’ (Fontana, quoted in P. Gottschaller, Lucio Fontana: The Artist’s Materials, Los Angeles, 2012, p. 114). Executed in 1965, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino is one of the most enigmatic of this playfully exuberant series, a work of sleek and elegant minimalism that conjures a cosmic realm.
The addition of a frame to surround a canvas pierced with buchi (‘holes’) was an idea Fontana had first explored in 1959. However, it was not until 1964 that he returned to this concept, incorporating this new physical element into his Concetti spaziali. Seeking with his buchi and tagli (‘cuts’) to invoke a sense of the boundless, infinite space that lay beyond and around the canvas itself, with the teatrini, Fontana altered the visual perception of this spatial dimension by adding a contoured lacquer frame. In this way, he introduced a theatrical, sometimes figurative element to his work, creating a fictional, confined space bordered by a horizon line. The stage-like configuration of Concetto spaziale, Teatrino invites the viewer to contemplate the physical space projected directly in front of them, marked by the sharp silhouettes of the forms of the surrounding frame. Space becomes the spectacle, and the viewer the audience. As Enrico Crispolti has described, ‘The shaped lacquer frames and the clean grounds of the sky traversed by ordered constellations of holes indicate a new desire to create an objectified configuration of a kind of spatial “spectacle”, which Fontana presents with an almost classical imaginative composure’ (E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Milan, 2006, p. 79).
Fontana often cut strange, stylised amorphous forms into the frames of the teatrini, creating three-dimensional protrusions that seem to grow from the sides, casting shadows across the monochrome surface of the canvas. Many of these mysterious shapes, indentations and projections suggest recognisable, figurative motifs – aquatic forms, mountainous peaks or other earthbound landscapes, for example – which impart a sense of narrative into the teatrini. In contrast to this however, in the present work, Fontana has conjured a far more astral impression; what Enrico Crispolti described as a type of ‘cosmic figuration’ (Crispolti, ibid., p. 79). Surrounded by a sleek white frame, the empty, white monochrome canvas of Concetto spaziale, Teatrino, marked by a solitary arabesque of holes, becomes a window onto the cosmos, a celestial theatre that offers a panorama of emptiness and endlessness. Rather than being an enclosed projection of finite space therefore, this work embodies the artist’s long-felt desire to encapsulate the infinite. As Luca Massimo Barbero has written, ‘These works do not possess “theatricality” in the sense that they are a story, but respond to the artist’s constant need to create an image that exists where everything is really metaphorical, the fruit of fantasy and the memory of a possible future universe. In the teatrini it is possible to grasp a kind of unity, between image, object, material and that ‘philosophical’ state which Fontana was often concerned with as a new Idea. Man in Space is alone, alone before Infinity’ (Luca Massimo Barbero, in Crispolti, ibid., p. 79).
L. Fontana
‘I was thinking of those worlds, of the moon with these holes, this terrible silence that causes us anguish, and the astronauts in a new world. And so in the artist's fantasy these immense things have been there for billions of years man arrives, in mortal silence in this anguish, and leaves a vital sign of his arrival they were these still forms with a sign of wanting to make the inert matter live, weren't they?'
L. Fontana
With its lacquered frame gleaming around the white, monochrome canvas, which is punctured with a solitary constellation-like trail of holes, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino perfectly demonstrates the mysterious and magical combination of Spatialism and lyricism that was embodied in Lucio Fontana's celebrated teatrini or 'Little Theatres'. Begun in 1964, when Fontana stood at the peak of his prolific and innovative career, the teatrini saw the artist create another visual incarnation of Spatialism, the radical movement he had founded in the 1940s. Combining a sense of the bold and stylised figuration of Pop art, the prevailing artistic tendency of the time, with his lifelong dedication to the evocation of space, both physical and metaphorical, these playful works present theatrically framed windows into space. As he explained in his own words, they were a type of, ‘realistic Spatialism…Also a little bit in the fashion of these Pop Art things…but still in my way. They were forms that Man imagines in space’ (Fontana, quoted in P. Gottschaller, Lucio Fontana: The Artist’s Materials, Los Angeles, 2012, p. 114). Executed in 1965, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino is one of the most enigmatic of this playfully exuberant series, a work of sleek and elegant minimalism that conjures a cosmic realm.
The addition of a frame to surround a canvas pierced with buchi (‘holes’) was an idea Fontana had first explored in 1959. However, it was not until 1964 that he returned to this concept, incorporating this new physical element into his Concetti spaziali. Seeking with his buchi and tagli (‘cuts’) to invoke a sense of the boundless, infinite space that lay beyond and around the canvas itself, with the teatrini, Fontana altered the visual perception of this spatial dimension by adding a contoured lacquer frame. In this way, he introduced a theatrical, sometimes figurative element to his work, creating a fictional, confined space bordered by a horizon line. The stage-like configuration of Concetto spaziale, Teatrino invites the viewer to contemplate the physical space projected directly in front of them, marked by the sharp silhouettes of the forms of the surrounding frame. Space becomes the spectacle, and the viewer the audience. As Enrico Crispolti has described, ‘The shaped lacquer frames and the clean grounds of the sky traversed by ordered constellations of holes indicate a new desire to create an objectified configuration of a kind of spatial “spectacle”, which Fontana presents with an almost classical imaginative composure’ (E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Milan, 2006, p. 79).
Fontana often cut strange, stylised amorphous forms into the frames of the teatrini, creating three-dimensional protrusions that seem to grow from the sides, casting shadows across the monochrome surface of the canvas. Many of these mysterious shapes, indentations and projections suggest recognisable, figurative motifs – aquatic forms, mountainous peaks or other earthbound landscapes, for example – which impart a sense of narrative into the teatrini. In contrast to this however, in the present work, Fontana has conjured a far more astral impression; what Enrico Crispolti described as a type of ‘cosmic figuration’ (Crispolti, ibid., p. 79). Surrounded by a sleek white frame, the empty, white monochrome canvas of Concetto spaziale, Teatrino, marked by a solitary arabesque of holes, becomes a window onto the cosmos, a celestial theatre that offers a panorama of emptiness and endlessness. Rather than being an enclosed projection of finite space therefore, this work embodies the artist’s long-felt desire to encapsulate the infinite. As Luca Massimo Barbero has written, ‘These works do not possess “theatricality” in the sense that they are a story, but respond to the artist’s constant need to create an image that exists where everything is really metaphorical, the fruit of fantasy and the memory of a possible future universe. In the teatrini it is possible to grasp a kind of unity, between image, object, material and that ‘philosophical’ state which Fontana was often concerned with as a new Idea. Man in Space is alone, alone before Infinity’ (Luca Massimo Barbero, in Crispolti, ibid., p. 79).