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Lot Essay
Executed in 1964, Concetto spaziale, Attese sings with the intensity of its blue. The slashes in the surface are elegant and even calligraphic in their lyrical progression across the canvas. These openings, invitations to a new understanding of the world, demand that the viewer participate in a great leap forwards. This is an invitation into the Space Age of Fontana. And the lushness and radiance of the blue of the surface speaks also of the transcendental. For blue was the colour of Yves Klein's most famous monochromes.
Fontana was open and explicit in his admiration of Klein, who had died two years before Concetto spaziale, Attese was created. 'Klein is the one who understands the problem of space with his blue dimension,' Fontana said. 'He is really abstract, one of the artist who have done something important' (Fontana, quoted in T. Trini, 'The last interview given by Fontana', pp.34-36, W. Beeren & N. Serota, Lucio Fontana, exh. cat., Amsterdam & London, 1988, p. 34).
Taking their relationship into consideration, it is apt that Concetto spaziale, Attese appears to be Fontana's overt attempt to disprove Klein's assertions that, 'It is color which bathes in cosmic sensibility. The line does not have the ability to impregnate, as color does. The line cuts space... Color impregnates it. Line rushes through infinity; color just 'is' in infinity' (Klein, quoted in T. McEvilley, 'Yves Klein: Conquistador of the Void', pp. 19-87, Yves Klein 1928-1962: A Retrospective, exh.cat., Houston, 1982, p. 45). Fontana's lines are cuts, and yet it is precisely in this way that they, like Klein's blue, usher in a new concept of space and infinity, allowing the Italian Spatialist to create a common ground between his own art and his friend's.
Fontana was open and explicit in his admiration of Klein, who had died two years before Concetto spaziale, Attese was created. 'Klein is the one who understands the problem of space with his blue dimension,' Fontana said. 'He is really abstract, one of the artist who have done something important' (Fontana, quoted in T. Trini, 'The last interview given by Fontana', pp.34-36, W. Beeren & N. Serota, Lucio Fontana, exh. cat., Amsterdam & London, 1988, p. 34).
Taking their relationship into consideration, it is apt that Concetto spaziale, Attese appears to be Fontana's overt attempt to disprove Klein's assertions that, 'It is color which bathes in cosmic sensibility. The line does not have the ability to impregnate, as color does. The line cuts space... Color impregnates it. Line rushes through infinity; color just 'is' in infinity' (Klein, quoted in T. McEvilley, 'Yves Klein: Conquistador of the Void', pp. 19-87, Yves Klein 1928-1962: A Retrospective, exh.cat., Houston, 1982, p. 45). Fontana's lines are cuts, and yet it is precisely in this way that they, like Klein's blue, usher in a new concept of space and infinity, allowing the Italian Spatialist to create a common ground between his own art and his friend's.