Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana (1899 – 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor, and theorist who is known as the founder of Spatialism. The Spatialism movement focused on the synthesis of color, sound,...
Lucio Fontana (1899 – 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor, and theorist who is known as the founder of Spatialism. The Spatialism movement focused on the synthesis of color, sound, space, movement, and time. Breaking through the two-dimensionality of the traditional spatial qualities of sculpture and painting, Fontana desired to create a new medium that blended architecture, painting, and sculpture. He was best known for his monochrome canvases known as Concetti Spaziale that he would cut or puncture, leaving distinctive gaping slash marks and holes which exposed the dimensional space beneath. Fontana’s innovative spatial theories heralded later developments in environmental art, performance art, and Avante-Garde art movements such as ‘arte povera’. Fontana’s first major international retrospective was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1977. His works reside in museums and galleries around the world such as the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Kunstmuseum in Basel, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.