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Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana, Concealtto Spazie, 1965 Graphite on aluminum, 95 ¾ × 38 × 3 ¼ inches (243 × 96.5 × 8 cm)

Lucio Fontana, Concealtto Spazie, 1965

Graphite on aluminum, 95 ¾ × 38 × 3 ¼ inches (243 × 96.5 × 8 cm)

Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio, 1963 Oil on canvas, 70 ⅛ × 48 ½ inches (178 × 123 cm)© Fondazione Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio, 1963

Oil on canvas, 70 ⅛ × 48 ½ inches (178 × 123 cm)
© Fondazione Lucio Fontana

About

Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) was born in Rosario de Santa Fé, Argentina and raised in Milan. He moved back to Argentina in 1922 where he worked as a sculptor in his father's studio for several years. In 1926, he participated in the first exhibition of Nexus, a group of young local Argentinian artists. Returning to Milan in 1928, Fontana enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. His first solo show was held at Galleria Il Milione in Milan in 1931. In 1935 he traveled to Paris and joined the Abstraction-Création group. The same year, he developed his skills in ceramics in Albisola, Italy and Sevres, France. In 1939, he joined Corrente, a Milan-based group of expressionist artists, while intensifying his collaborations with architects. In 1940, he moved back to Buenos Aires, where he founded the Academia de Altamira with some of his students in 1946, from which the Manifiesto Blanco group emerged. He returned to Milan in 1947 and, together with a group of writers and philosophers, signed the Primo Manifesto dello Spazialismo. His first major international retrospective was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1977. Subsequent museum exhibitions include Musée national d'art moderne de la ville de Paris and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1987 (traveled to La Fundación 'la Caixa' Barcelona; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1988); Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1996 (traveled to Museum Moderner Kunst Stifung Ludwig, Vienna, 1997); Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan (1999); "Lucio Fontana. Entre Materia y Espacio," La Fundación 'la Caixa' and Museo National Cantro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1998); Hayward Gallery, London (1999); and "Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York" Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2006–07).

Fairs, Events & Announcements

Zeng Fanzhi, 8, 2018 © Zeng Fanzhi 2018

Art Fair

Art Basel Hong Kong 2018

March 29–31, 2018, booth 1C18
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
www.artbasel.com

Gagosian is pleased to participate in Art Basel Hong Kong. To view highlights from the booth in advance of the fair visit www.artsy.com. Our presentation will include works by Georg Baselitz, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joe Bradley, Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, Alexander Calder, John Currin, Willem de Kooning, Edmund De Waal, Jean Dubuffet, Urs Fischer, Lucio Fontana, Walton Ford, Katharina Grosse, Mark Grotjahn, Andreas Gursky, Damien Hirst, Jia Aili, Anish Kapoor, Yves Klein, Karen Kneffel, Jeff Koons, Harmony Korine, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami, Takashi Murakami & Virgil Abloh, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville, Richard Serra, Rudolf Stingel, Mark Tansey, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Jonas Wood, Christopher Wool, and Zeng Fanzhi. Tickets are available at www.artbasel.com.

Zeng Fanzhi, 8, 2018 © Zeng Fanzhi 2018

Museum Exhibitions

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, Expectations, 1959 © 2019 Fondazione Lucio Fontana/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome

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Lucio Fontana
On the Threshold

January 23–April 14, 2019
Met Breuer and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
www.metmuseum.org

This first major survey of Lucio Fontana in the United States in more than forty years reexamines his career. The exhibition explores the artist’s beginnings as a sculptor—including his work in ceramic as well as his pioneering environments—contextualizing the radical gesture of his Tagli (Cuts) as part of his broader search to integrate the space of art and the space of the viewer.

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, Expectations, 1959 © 2019 Fondazione Lucio Fontana/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome

Installation view, Black Hole: Arte e matericità tra informe et invisibile, GAMeC—Galleria d’Arte Moderna et Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy, October 4, 2018–January 6, 2019. Artwork, left to right: Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini-Collezione Burri, Città di Castello © 2018 SIAE; © Piero Manzoni/2018 SIAE. Photo: Antonio Maniscalco

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Black Hole
Arte e matericità tra informe et invisibile

October 4, 2018–January 6, 2019
GAMeC—Galleria d’Arte Moderna et Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy
gamec.it

Black Hole: Arte e matericità tra informe et invisibile is the first exhibition in an ambitious three-year research program dedicated to the theme of matter. Activating a dialogue with the history of scientific and technological discoveries, and investigating the development of aesthetics theories, Black Hole showcases the work of artists who have explored the material element’s most intrinsic significance, where the actual concept of matter shatters to open up a more profound idea of matter as an original element, as the primordial substance that constitutes everything. Work by Urs Fischer, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Giacometti, Anselm Kiefer, and Piero Manzoni is included.

Installation view, Black Hole: Arte e matericità tra informe et invisibile, GAMeC—Galleria d’Arte Moderna et Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy, October 4, 2018–January 6, 2019. Artwork, left to right: Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini-Collezione Burri, Città di Castello © 2018 SIAE; © Piero Manzoni/2018 SIAE. Photo: Antonio Maniscalco

Giuseppe Penone, Respirare l’ombra (To Breath the Shadow), 1999 (detail), Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Installation view at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Photo: Paolo Pellion

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Arte Povera
A Creative Revolution

May 17–August 16, 2018
State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
www.hermitagemuseum.org

Arte Povera emerged in the second half of the 1960s with a generation of Italian artists who challenged traditional painting and sculpture by embracing simple materials and techniques. The exhibition includes works by prominent members of the movement, as well as art that proceeded Arte Povera. Work by Lucio Fontana and Giuseppe Penone is included.

Giuseppe Penone, Respirare l’ombra (To Breath the Shadow), 1999 (detail), Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Installation view at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Photo: Paolo Pellion

Carsten Höller, Light Wall, 2000/17 © Carsten Höller. Photo: Attilio Maranzano

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Welt ohne Außen

June 8–August 5, 2018
Martin-Gropius-Bau Berliner Festspiele, Berlin
www.berlinerfestspiele.de

Spanning the Light and Space movement of the late 1960s to contemporary performances and workshops, this exhibition features a great variety of immersive practices, which dissolve categories of viewer and work and diminish the distance between subject and object. Work by Lucio Fontana and Carsten Höller is included.

Carsten Höller, Light Wall, 2000/17 © Carsten Höller. Photo: Attilio Maranzano

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