One day back in 1948, Italian artist Lucio Fontana (18991968) reached a state of frustration that gave way to rage, turning against a painting he was making and violently piercing the canvas. This act of destruction was anything but, for it gave birth to what became known as Concetti Spaziali, or “Spatial Conceptions,” Fontana’s new vision of art.
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Where the canvas was traditionally seen as a mere two-dimensional surface upon which representation would lie, Fontana recognized it was a three-dimensional object integral to the work of art. For Fontana, the medium was the message, one that he understood as a natural extension of his prior training as an avant-garde sculptor.
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Born in Rosario de Santa Fé, Argentina, and raised in his father’s native Milan, Fontana alternately traveled between the two countries for the first half of his life. Possessed by a fascination with the interplay between light and space, and the ways in which they transformed our environment, Fontana intuitively understood the ephemeral nature of the physical realm.
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