Live Auction 7834Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction
Christie’s roundel
Lot 21

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)

Concetto spaziale

Closed11 February 2010

Price Realised

GBP 361,250

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Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)
Concetto spaziale
signed 'l. fontana' (lower right); signed and titled 'l. fontana Concetto spaziale' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
39 3/8 x 31 7/8in. (100 x 81cm.)
Executed in 1961

Galerie Rive Droite, Paris.
Anon. sale, Christie's London, 28 June 1990, lot 455.
Private Collection, U.S.A.
Anon. sale, Christie's London, 23 October 2001, lot 130.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Specialist note

'...beyond perspective... the discovery of the cosmos is a new dimension, it is infinity, so I make a hole in this canvas, which was at the basis of all the arts and I have created an infinite dimension... the idea is precisely that, it is a new dimension corresponding to the cosmos... The hole is, precisely, creating this void behind there... Einsteins discovery of the cosmos is the infinite dimension, without end. And so here we have: foreground, middleground and background... to go farther what do I have to do?... I make holes, infinity passes through them, light passes through them, there is no need to paint (quoted in Enrico Crispolti, 'Spatialism and Informel. The Fifties' in Lucio Fontana, exh. cat., Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome 1998, p. 146).