Lucio Fontana

Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Rome

Galleria Seno, Milan

Collection Pontello, Florence

Private collection, Monaco

Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1968, no. 37 

Milan, Seno, 1973, no. 11, illustrated on the cover

Florence, Galeria Santacroce, Omaggio a Lucio Fontana, 1984, illustrated

« Il Popolo di Milano », 6-2-1957, p. 3, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana. Catalogue Raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux Vol. II, Brussels, 1974, p. 46

« Il Giornale d'Italia », 21/22-5-1974, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue général Vol. I, Milan 1986, no. 55 BA 5, p. 166, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue Raisonné de sculptures, peintures, environnements, Milan 2006, no. 55 BA 5, p. 319, no. 55 BA 5, illustrated

Executed in 1955, Concetto Spaziale, Barocco belongs to the Barocchi series (1954–1957), a pivotal moment marked by a newly asserted intensity, both dynamic and material. These works, whose surfaces are punctured with perforations, are characterized by vigorous applications of oil and mixed media (sequins, sand, etc.), often combined with fragments of glass paste to produce striking effects of movement and light.

The term “Barocco” here evokes a state of tension, oscillating between cosmic suggestion and residual figuration. Nourished by his fascination with Italian Baroque art—whose works filled his studio—Fontana found in it a model in which forms seem to leave the surface and invade real space. He radicalized this idea by literally opening up the canvas and introducing relief. Far from serving as a mere support, the canvas becomes an active field, traversed by tensions and flows.

Founded in 1947 by Lucio Fontana, the Spatialist movement articulated a profoundly innovative conception of art, seeking to unite sound, color, movement, and space within a single language. Rejecting the traditional boundaries of both painting and sculpture, Fontana forcefully asserted: “There can be neither spatial painting nor spatial sculpture, but only a spatial concept of art” (in Carla Lonzi, Autoritratto, Bari: De Donato, 1969, pp. 169–171).

From the 1950s onward, his gesture became foundational: to pierce the canvas, to open up its surface and reveal an unprecedented dimension. He would later describe this approach as a transcendence of representation itself: “beyond perspective… the discovery of the cosmos is a new dimension, it is infinity… I make a hole in this canvas… I have created an infinite dimension… the hole creates precisely this void behind… infinity passes through” (Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2006, p. 229).

In Concetto Spaziale, Barocco, matter itself becomes the true subject. The pictorial surface, intensely worked, unfolds into reliefs, cavities, and perforations that capture light and animate the composition. Neither fully painting nor entirely sculpture, the work asserts itself as an autonomous form in which protrusions and voids engage in dialogue with surrounding space. The perforations, arranged in rhythmic or constellation-like patterns, transform the canvas into a field of energy, evoking a quasi-cosmic iconography central to Fontana’s practice.

The imprint of the Baroque is also evident in the dramatic use of contrast and light, recalling the chiaroscuro of the seventeenth century. Fontana himself emphasized the decisive role of this tradition in his artistic revolution: “A change is necessary both in essence and in form. Painting, sculpture, and poetry must be overturned and transformed… the Baroque has guided us in this direction… images seem to abandon the plane and pursue in space the movements they suggest… movement is an essential condition of matter” (Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006, p. 229).

Thus, the artist creates a space-matter of rare intensity that transcends any traditional distinction between surface and depth. The work emerges as a radical exploration of space, in which the artistic gesture quite literally opens onto infinity.