Lucio Fontana

It gives me great pleasure to present this exhibition dedicated to “Lucio Fontana: at the roots of spatialism” organized by the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institutes in North America. The exhibition is designed to provide the public with a better understanding and appreciation of an artist who, amongst the Masters and avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, was at the forefront of research and formal experimentation.
His relentless investigation began in the thirties and continued for the rest of his life; it focused on finding dimensions, “spaces” and new shapes. Yet despite all this, it took a long time for Lucio Fontana’s work to capture the attention of the discerning American public, initially enthralled by the European modernism of the French school.
This is one reason why today, while the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is exhibiting the magnificent rare body of works, “Venice/New York,” we are pleased to present to the same public a selection of works illustrating the progress and evolution of Fontana’s research on signs and matter. The exhibition combines his aperture towards the modern movement while he was in South America with his works inspired by the atmosphere in Milan based, so to speak, on metaphysical considerations and the practical application of his studies and interiors or on the everyday aesthetics represented by the world of fashion.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the remarkable and unique photographs of Lucio Fontana, chosen and kindly donated by a close friend of the artist, Giuseppe Loy, a photographer whose archives have yet to be fully exploited.
I trust this exhibition will be successful and to all its visitors, I sincerely hope it will sharpen your curiosity for the kind of modernity interpreted by this Master artist, a modernity we can all use to appreciate and recognize the lights of our age.

Gherardo La Francesca
Director General
General Directorate for Cultural Promotion
and Cooperation Department