Seldom has an artist's name been so closely linked with a singular achievement as in the case of Lucio Fontana. In 1949 he mounted a square, one meter by one meter sheet of white paper on a canvas (p. 8). Instead of drawing or painting on it, Fontana perforated the sheet from the back with a number of holes, concentrated at the center and extending across the sheet in irregular circular and spiral patterns. Around the edges of the holes, the material protruded above the picture surface and, in oblique light, cast shadows on it. Rather than treating the paper as a two-dimensional plane, Fontana evidently viewed it as a plastic material whose potentials for creating a sense of depth were worth exploring. In retrospect,he would describe this moment as the crucial turning point in his career. ...

"My discovery was the hole, period."

"A taste for influences"

"Spatialism" - The Emergence of a New Direction in Art

"The reincarnation of a doge" - Between Venice and New York

"Open the doors!" - Teatrini and Ambienti

Chronology