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Lot Essay
A luminous canvas, punctured with Lucio Fontana’s signature buchi and encased in an undulating lacquered notched wooden frame of the same colour, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino is a captivating example of the Teatrini works that brought new dimensions to the artist’s pioneering Spatialist theories. Extending the conceptual grounding of his tagli, or slashes, the Teatrini invite the viewer to contemplate the deep spatial void beyond the canvas. The artist conceived the series between 1964 and 1966, when he was still working on his buchi, tagli and olii and was finishing the acclaimed cycle Fine di Dio. In the Teatrini Fontana introduces a playful figurative element to his work, cutting protrusions into a box-like frame to depict stylized organic forms that stand out in relief from the canvas it envelopes. The topographic silhouettes created in Concetto spaziale, Teatrino by the shiny lacquered frame act as a foreground against the pierced, matte canvas of the mid-ground, giving the impression of a multi-layered landscape. The wooden edges undulate and ripple like sea swells or stylized bushes, playing out a game of shadows and light across the dual surfaces. The holes puncturing the canvas run smoothly from edge to edge in a wavy continuous line, echoing the frame and providing the work with an almost-musical harmony. Concetto spaziale, Teatrino was included in many important exhibitions including the artist's solo show at the Galerie Neuendorf, Frankfurt.
Literally meaning ‘little theatres’ the Teatrini invite the viewers - as an audience in front of a stage - to contemplate beyond the limitations of foreground shapes, and even the scope of the horizon line suggested by the holes, into the deep space beyond the canvas. In this sense the work is a theatrical mise en scène of Fontana’s signature spatial experimentations, aiming at revealing the sculptural potential of the canvas beyond the limits of its two dimensions. Blurring the distinctions between painting, sculpture and architecture, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino expresses the fundamental concerns of Fontana's art, effecting the viewer's appreciation of both the space within the work and beyond.
As Enrico Crispolti has written: ‘the sharpness of the lacquered shaped frames and the clean grounds of sky traversed by ordered constellations of holes indicate a new desire to create an objectified configuration of a kind of spatial ‘spectacle’, which Fontana presents with an almost classical imaginative composure’ (E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 79). Reminiscent of the opening of a stage, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino should be seen in the context of Fontana's architectural work, the Ambienti, walk-in works that altered the atmosphere of vast spaces through the use of perforated walls and ceilings. Fontana manipulated space and light in his Teatrini in much the same way as his large-scale environmental interventions and they are to some degree his permanent representation of the complex spatial constructs executed in generally temporary installations. Indeed, the very title of the series Teatrini contains the idea that they are in themselves miniature 'environments'. Although the frame can be seen as a physical barrier to what lies beyond, the polished surface of the lacquer paint has a mirroring effect that inevitably reflects the viewer's own silhouette, creating a continuum between the space they occupy and the pictorial space of the painting. Concetto spaziale, Teatrino therefore not only acts as a form of gateway into the hidden and infinite worlds behind its surface, but also between the artist and its public.
Literally meaning ‘little theatres’ the Teatrini invite the viewers - as an audience in front of a stage - to contemplate beyond the limitations of foreground shapes, and even the scope of the horizon line suggested by the holes, into the deep space beyond the canvas. In this sense the work is a theatrical mise en scène of Fontana’s signature spatial experimentations, aiming at revealing the sculptural potential of the canvas beyond the limits of its two dimensions. Blurring the distinctions between painting, sculpture and architecture, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino expresses the fundamental concerns of Fontana's art, effecting the viewer's appreciation of both the space within the work and beyond.
As Enrico Crispolti has written: ‘the sharpness of the lacquered shaped frames and the clean grounds of sky traversed by ordered constellations of holes indicate a new desire to create an objectified configuration of a kind of spatial ‘spectacle’, which Fontana presents with an almost classical imaginative composure’ (E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 79). Reminiscent of the opening of a stage, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino should be seen in the context of Fontana's architectural work, the Ambienti, walk-in works that altered the atmosphere of vast spaces through the use of perforated walls and ceilings. Fontana manipulated space and light in his Teatrini in much the same way as his large-scale environmental interventions and they are to some degree his permanent representation of the complex spatial constructs executed in generally temporary installations. Indeed, the very title of the series Teatrini contains the idea that they are in themselves miniature 'environments'. Although the frame can be seen as a physical barrier to what lies beyond, the polished surface of the lacquer paint has a mirroring effect that inevitably reflects the viewer's own silhouette, creating a continuum between the space they occupy and the pictorial space of the painting. Concetto spaziale, Teatrino therefore not only acts as a form of gateway into the hidden and infinite worlds behind its surface, but also between the artist and its public.