"We want an art free of all aesthetic artifice. We put into practice what is natural, what is true."
Argentine-Italian painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana is considered founder and representative of Spatialism. Followers of ‘Spazialismo’ (the Italian translation), which arose in the late 1940’s, intended to synthesize colour, sound, space, movement, and time into a new type of art. Fontana published his ideas of the movement in his Manifesto Blanco in Argentina in 1946. He proposed a ‘spatial’ attempt in art instead of a ‘virtual’ approach, combining art and science through the use of techniques such as neon lighting and television. He also cut and stabbed paintings, which are also considered Spatialist works.
Work by Fontana is found in important international museums and collections all over the world, such as the Guggenheim Museum and the MOMA in New York, the Kunstmuseum Basel, Haifa Museum in Israel, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (Netherlands) and many more.