I am a sculptor, not a ceramicist. I have never turned a plate on a wheel, nor painted a vase.
Production location: Albissola (Liguria)
Type: Plates, vases, small sculptures, handles, Spatial Concepts
Lucio Fontana has often been defined as a ceramicist, although, as he himself stated, he rejected this label. What are catalogued as "ceramics" are works created after 1949, in ceramic or terracotta, which have mostly a purely decorative orientation.
These include plates, vases, small sculptures and handles, although there is no shortage of "Spatial Concepts" characterized by slashes and holes on terracotta. His ceramics, even when they take on decorative forms, must be interpreted in light of Fontana's profound plastic experience: they are works that involve volume, surface and gesture in a direct and radical way.
Fontana's first contact with the world of art ceramics actually took place years before his arrival in Albissola: his very first ceramic work was the "Charleston Dancer," modeled in Argentina in 1926 and purchased by the Gallery of Modern Art in Rosario de Santa Fe. The encounter with Tullio Mazzotti, fundamental to the Albissola period, took place on November 14, 1934, at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, on the occasion of the First National Exhibition of Plastic Murals for Fascist Architecture — an event that brought together the protagonists of Second Futurism, including Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Nicolaj Diulgheroff, Fillia, Enrico Prampolini and Fortunato Depero. The actual collaboration at the Mazzotti family manufactory in Albissola, however, began only in 1936, after the death of Edoardo Persico, a mutual friend who had facilitated contact between the two. Before arriving in Albissola, Fontana also had a brief formative period at the French national manufactory of Sèvres, an experience that the artist himself recalled as a stage in the search for form through ceramic matter.
The plates and vases he produced are often animated by violent and immediate gestures: incisions, perforations, scratches that make the surface explode in an expressive and dynamic way. In some cases, these works anticipate his famous Spatial Concepts, showing how ceramics were a fundamental testing ground for developing the language that would make him famous worldwide.
Color also plays an important role in the ceramics: brilliant glazes, bold chromatic contrasts, vitrified surfaces that reflect light and interact with the surrounding space.
