Lucio Fontana: Biography 1941–1950 – Spatialism and new languages

1941

Despite the personal discomfort expressed in letters to Italian friends, Fontana began to receive growing recognition from both the public and art critics.

1942

Important awards in Argentina: He obtained the first prize from the Comisión Nacional de Cultura at the XXXII Salón Nacional de Bellas Artes with the work Muchacho del Paraná. He also achieved first prize at the Salón Municipal de Pintura y Escultura in Cordova with Intervalo.

At the same time, he began his career as a teacher, teaching modeling at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas in Rosario de Santa Fe and decoration at the Academia de Bellas Artes "Prilidiano Pueyrredón" in Buenos Aires.

1943

He established himself in the upper-class circles of Buenos Aires, moving his studio to Calle Esmeralda. In Italy, Tullio d'Albisola published an illustrated story with fourteen drawings by Fontana.

1944

He continued to distinguish himself in art exhibitions: he participated in the XXXIV Salón Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, winning the first municipal prize with the work Mujer herida. He also exhibited at the IV Salón Municipal de Pintura y Escultura in Cordova.

1945

An intense summer for Fontana: he organized a solo exhibition at Impulso, near Buenos Aires, and participated in the exhibition Once escultores argentinos at the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in La Plata. With the work La mujer de Lot he took part in the Salón Independiente in Buenos Aires, an alternative to the official national salon.

He obtained the chair of modeling at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "Manuel Belgrano" and moved his studio to Calle Chancos, to a larger space.

1946

Manifiesto Blanco: A crucial year, marked by the Manifiesto Blanco, developed in the Argentine avant-garde environment, toward which Fontana maintained a critical attitude. The Manifesto, published in November in leaflet form, was written by Bernardo Arias, Horacio Cazenueve, and Marcos Fridman. Significantly, Fontana did not sign it, probably due to his institutional role at the Escuela Nacional.

He promoted in Buenos Aires the Altamira School, attended by young people from the Madí Group, born from the concretist movement led by Tomás Maldonado. In the same year the monograph by Juan Zocchi on his Argentine work was published.

Father's death: Notable is the death of his father Luigi in Rosario de Santa Fe.

The Argentine context: Arte Madí and Arte Concreta

During his third Argentine stay (1940-1947), Fontana lived in an effervescent cultural milieu that profoundly influenced the birth of Spatialism. The context was dominated by movements of radical renewal:

The Arturo Group and the Manifiesto Invencionista

The magazine Arturo (1944), with a cover by Tomás Maldonado, contained illustrations by Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Torres García. The manifesto proclaimed: "Art will be only tension and pure image, aesthetic vibration" and "Abstract art will guarantee a multidimensional harmony, without the needs for psychological adaptation".

Edgar Bayley, the group's poet, wrote the Manifiesto Invencionista (1946), dominated by historical materialism and a Hegelian-Marxist idea oriented toward spiritual and social progress. The manifesto advocated detachment from the primitivist myth in favor of a sign of pure invention: "Don't search or find, Invent".

The Madí Movement

In August 1946, Gyula Kosice founded the Madí Group, which claimed greater inventive freedom. Kosice developed the sculpture Royi: wooden elements assembled as vectors in space that affirmed the importance of void over mass and required the presence of the viewer.

In his magazine Arte Madí Universale, Kosice wanted Fontana's participation. In his autobiography, he advanced the hypothesis that all of Fontana's art, especially from the Manifiesto Blanco onward, had been influenced by the insights of the Madí movement in relation to the desire to go beyond two-dimensionality to embrace space and light.

The Asociación Arte Concreto Invención

In 1946 Maldonado founded the Arte Concreto Invención Association. The manifesto stated: "A poem or a painting must help man act within his society". The idea was that of an art that adapted form and expression to technological progress, rejecting speculative aesthetics in favor of a "scientific aesthetics".

Fontana's dual nature

This stay in Buenos Aires gave Fontana an impulse that cross-pollinated the insights matured in Europe, freeing them of all normative residue. The new Argentine art aimed at the free creation of forms and a positive idea of history, very distant from Fautrier's dead bodies, Burri's wounds, the suffering spirit of European Informel.

An illuminating synthesis: As scholar Marinella Venanzi summarizes: "This is perhaps Fontana's true dual nature: having absorbed all the tensions of European art but with South American idealism".

1947

Return to Italy and Manifesto of Spatialism: On March 22 he embarked in Buenos Aires on the steamer Argentina to return to Italy; he settled in Milan at via Castelmorrone 37 and resumed his ceramics activity in Albisola. In December the Manifesto of Spatialism was published, signed by Fontana together with critic Giorgio Kaisserlian, philosopher Beniamino Joppolo, and writer Milena Milani.

He renewed his collaboration with rationalist architects, creating polychrome ceramic friezes for a building at via Senato 11, designed by Marco Zanuso and Roberto Menghi.

1948

In March he published the second Spatialist manifesto, also signed by Gianni Dova and Antonino Tullier. In spring he participated in the National Exhibition of Figurative Arts in Rome with a large ceramic sculpture, Il Guerriero.

He was also present at the exhibition Abstract Art in Italy and at the XXIV Venice Biennale, where he exhibited an abstract sculpture, three ceramic works, and one in mosaic. His sculptural research, strongly material, resumed the studies of the thirties, anticipating "informal" outcomes. He established his new studio at via Prina.

1949

Spatial environment and birth of the holes: Fontana's creativity erupted with the work Black spatial environment, installed from February 5 to 11 at Carlo Cardazzo's Galleria del Naviglio in Milan. The installation marked a crucial moment in his production, inaugurating the cycle of spatial environments, fundamental works for the development of minimalism and light art. In the same year, Fontana began the cycle of "holes," works that revolutionized his plastic-pictorial language.

He continued in the funerary field with the Angel in polychrome ceramic for the Chinelli tomb, designed by Renzo Zavanella at the Monumental Cemetery of Milan. He initiated a collaboration with Arredamenti Borsani for ceilings, lamps, and ceramic furnishing objects. He began a period of intense travel among Italian and European cities.

1950

In May he held a solo exhibition of ceramics at the Galleria il Milione and participated in the XXV Venice Art Biennale. He took part in the competition for the fifth door of the Milan Cathedral.

Third spatial manifesto: On April 2 he signed the third spatial manifesto, Proposal for a regulation, together with Milena Milani, Giampiero Giani, Beniamino Joppolo, Roberto Crippa, and Carlo Cardazzo. Shortly before he had held, with Joppolo, a conference at the Galleria del Naviglio on the theme "Clarifications on the spatial movement."

Disclaimer: The photos contained on this page belong to the FONDAZIONE LUCIO FONTANA [https://www.fondazioneluciofontana.it], which holds all rights. In this context they are used for purely educational purposes.