Lucio Fontana - Retrospective

Lucio Fontana is an Italian artist, best known for founding the art movement of spatialism...or spazialismo as the Italians would say, at the top of their voice, and with their arms waving around excessively.

The best description is always the art itself, but if I was to put it into words, Fontana's approach was an attempt to break away from traditional art forms, and to create art that projected into the space beyond the artwork itself, and to explore the use of space itself in his artworks.

Fontana explored spatialism in several ways, all of which are on display at the exposition:

••  Early sculptures and ceramics - Fontana's early sculptures were abstract and figurative but you can see a uniqueness in his works which was evidently the beginnings of his spatialist concepts.

••  Buchi (holes) - Spatialist works involving the puncturing of holes into the canvas.

••  Tagli (cuts) - Spatialist works where the puncturing concept was developed further into scratches and slits.

••  Nature - First called "balls", then "mouths", these works are terracotta balls which were hollowed out or gashed.

••  Olii (oils) - Further exploring the puncturing concept but with canvases coated in a thick layer of oil paint.

These concepts and approaches are then explored further by Fontana in too many ways to list here. Definitely one worth catching while it's in Paris.

••  Runs 25 Apr - 24 Aug, at Musée d'Art Moderne.