MARCH 6, 2020 

Photograph: Hauser & Wirth website

Lucio Fontana Walking the Space: Spatial Environments, 1948 – 1968

13 February – 12 April 2020 Public opening: Saturday 15 February, 3 – 7 pm Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles North A, B, and East Galleries

ceramics catalogue raisonné (currently in progress). The Los Angeles exhibition will be followed by an exhibition in New York in Spring 2021, exploring Fontana’s ceramics and sculptures. Subsequently, a major survey of the artist’s full career will be staged at Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong in Fall 2021.

‘Walking the Space’ will be accompanied by a new book published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers, as well as an archival presentation of related ephemera and drawings to provide an educational context for the art on view.

About the Exhibition The exhibition begins with Fontana’s first spatial work, ‘Ambiente spaziale a luce nera’ [Spatial Environment in Black Light] (1949), a pivotal installation that anticipated major conceptual movements, including Light & Space, Op Art, and Minimalism. Conceived in 1948 and first exhibited in 1949, this pitch-black room, illuminated by Wood’s lamps emitting black light, contains sculptural papier-mâché forms painted in brilliant fluorescent colors and suspended from the ceiling. The installation seeks to disorient the viewer, who by walking under and around the forms in the darkness experiences a sense of teetering between the infinite and finite. Influenced by aerospace discoveries of the time and Fontana’s own interest in science, the work’s aesthetic impact is otherworldly and prescient for its conceptual underpinnings. The artwork evades the categorization of ‘object’ by bringing form to the formless and awakening visitors to a multi-sensory art experience. With this first work, Fontana realizes the key tenets outlined in his Manifesto Spaziale [Spatialist Manifesto], a formative postwar text calling for the convergence of art and technology to discover new forms. By abolishing the constraints of conventional mediums, this environment embodies Fontana’s vision outlined in the Manifesto: ‘...with the resources of modern technology, we will make appear in the sky: artificial forms, rainbows of wonder, luminous writings.’

For the Milan Triennale in 1951, Fontana realized the luminous impact of neon beyond its prescribed utilitarian function by creating ‘Struttura al neon per la IX Triennale di Milano’ [Neon Structure for the 9th Milan Triennale], a twisting gesture composed of over 100 meters of white light tubes. Among the first to use neon in an environmental application, Fontana reveals the plastic dynamism of the material, as if writing with light, integrating ideas of space, time, and movement in a single form.

Continuing an in-depth exploration of Fontana’s spatial practice and his interest in architecture, the exhibition next takes visitors through two environments, each entitled ‘Ambiente spaziale: “Utopie”, nella XIII Triennale di Milano’ [Spatial Environment: “Utopias”, at the 13th Milan Triennale], both originally shown at the 13th edition of the Milan Triennale in 1964 and realized in collaboration with architect and artist Nanda Vigo. The first of the two 1964 environments directs visitors through a dark corridor with a curved wall marked with small holes. Enveloped by darkness, viewers are guided ahead by green lights that seem to emanate from the black void. In the second environment ‘Utopie,’ an undulating floor and red deep-pile carpet soften visitors’ steps, while ruby-colored metallic wallpaper covers a ceiling with red neon hidden behind Quadrionda glass, industrial material designed especially for this environment – all contributing to a crimson ambient glow. In each work, Fontana invents new methods to apply concepts of spatialism, freeing himself from the confines of the object in order to continue his search for modern modes of expression and perception. Fontana’s spatial theories, as expressed in this pair of environments attracted immediate attention, influencing the artist group Düsseldorf Zero to present ‘Hommage á Fontana’ at Documenta 3 in Kassel in 1964.

As Fontana further established himself as an innovator in exploring the fourth dimension in art, public institutions invited him to create special commissions of ambient works. His first comprehensive presentation in America   took place in 1966 at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he exhibited ‘Ambiente spaziale’ [Spatial Environment] (1966). This environment contains a sloped, low-ceilinged dark corridor that opens into a larger, level room. Inside this space, small, illuminated holes form a line bisecting the floor, ceiling, and two walls, creating the trace of a square.

In the next three environments, originally constructed for The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1967, Fontana reinvents elements that recur in his radical spatial works: neon, perforations, slashes, and suspension. In the     first of the three installations, ‘Ambiente spaziale’ [Spatial Environment] (1967), Fontana included a curved two- dimensional form suspended in a room filled with fluorescent dots. Through Fontana’s inventive use of black light, two-dimensional silhouettes appear to be defying gravity and take on three-dimensional attributes. In the next environment, visitors find Fontana reinterpreting his luminous sculpture from 1951 in ‘Ambiente spaziale con neon’ [Spatial Environment with Neon Light] (1967), a room lined with pink fabric anchored by an organic wave-like neon tube suspended from the ceiling – a minimalist execution with intense sensory impact. Fontana continued to work with monochromatic environments such as this, in ‘Ambiente spaziale a luce rossa’ [Spatial Environment in Red Light] (1967), where red light engulfs a room whose walls are divided into maze-like parallel corridors.

The exhibition’s final environment, ‘Ambiente spaziale in Documenta 4, a Kassel’ [Spatial Environment at Documenta 4, in Kassel] (1968), was created at the request of art historian Arnold Bode, who instructed Fontana to design a ‘cold and minimalist’ room. Here, visitors encounter a labyrinthine environment composed of narrow corridors that lead to a large laceration embedded within the wall, an allusion to the signature gesture of this daring, radical artist.