Concetto spaziale, Attesa
1966
Water paint on canvas
145 x 114 cm (57 1/16 x 44 7/8 in.)
A large white canvas is pierced by a vertical line. This is the only intervention of the artist. With this simple and symbolic gesture, Lucio Fontana immortalizes a fleeting moment. The result is a remarkable artwork that combines violence and serenity, transience and eternity, fullness and emptiness.
“My tagli [slashes] are primarily a philosophical expression, an act of faith in the Infinite, an affirmation of spirituality. When I sit in front of one of my tagli [...], I feel like a man liberated from the slavery of the material, like a man who belongs to the vastness of the present and the future,” he said in 1962. Attesa, which means “wait”, refers both to the artist's concentration when he prepares for his gesture and his contemplation of the slashed canvas as an image of the infinite.
Luciano Fontana's Concetto Spaziale (Attesa) was shown for the first time in 2006 at the Where Are We Going? exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, in Venice.
“My tagli [slashes] are primarily a philosophical expression, an act of faith in the Infinite, an affirmation of spirituality. When I sit in front of one of my tagli [...], I feel like a man liberated from the slavery of the material, like a man who belongs to the vastness of the present and the future,” he said in 1962. Attesa, which means “wait”, refers both to the artist's concentration when he prepares for his gesture and his contemplation of the slashed canvas as an image of the infinite.
Luciano Fontana's Concetto Spaziale (Attesa) was shown for the first time in 2006 at the Where Are We Going? exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, in Venice.
Exhibitions
© Fondation Lucio Fontana, Milano / by SIAE / Adagp, Paris.
