Robilant + Voena is pleased to present an exhibition of ceramics by the artist Lucio Fontana (1899-1968). Lucio Fontana, the artist recognized for taking abstract painting into the third dimension by slashing his canvases, started his career as a sculptor. Lesser known is his work as a ceramicist, which began in the mid-1930s and awakened an exploration of materiality, which profoundly informed his practice as an artist. He was intrigued by the endless shades of colour and its ability to reflect or restrain light. He was equally fascinated with the aspect of fortuity when firing a ceramic and how the results were often independent of the artist’s will.
Fontana’s obsession with matter and its continuous transformation reached its peak in works of art that he attempted to empty of weight, highlighting the element of randomness in their compositions. Immaterial: Lucio Fontana Ceramics explores the less-charted ceramic works of the artist. This exhibition coincides with the publication of Immaterial: Lucio Fontana Ceramics in.
This is the first English publication to focus specifically on his ceramic works; the book illustrates 50 examples of his ceramic production exhibited at Robilant+Voena gallery. Alongside a comprehensive essay by Paolo Campiglio the book also contains rarely exhibited photographs by Ugo Mulas, documenting Lucio Fontana’s artistic practice.
