Concetto spaziale

Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale is a canvas that is punctured as well as adorned with smashed up fragments of red Murano glass. This object in particular directly references Italy and the Italian fondness of ornament. The glass fragments and the holes function similarly by directing attention to the materiality of the canvas and the immediate space that surrounds it. These two elements act against each other in that one is an attack on the surface while the other venerates the surface with transparent embellishment and added texture. In Fontana’s work the association with the artist’s gesture is repressed and instead the holes conjure a mechanical impulse in their regularity. The title of the work is generic and Fontana used it for many of his artworks. The common thread in all the Concetto spaziale works is the desire to incorporate physical space into the composition itself.