29 July – 7 September 2023
Today, after twenty years, I can say that the “Concetti Spaziali”, declared in the Manifiesto Blanco of 1946, were not utopias, but rather the announcement of humanity’s evolution towards the destined Spatial civilization to which science and technology are leading us.
– Reprint of the Manifiesto Blanco, Lucio Fontana, 1966
Fontana’s hole, that simple act of puncturing a surface and reaching the uni-meta-verse. How relevant and contemporary it becomes for the forthcoming centuries of human history.
I have always believed that Lucio Fontana’s Spatial Concept represents a philosophy that can be attributed to the classical – future life of humankind. Today, however frightened and unprepared, we are on our path into the future of the metaverse, everything takes on a more precise significance.
The hole, the Attesa, the materia, the Teatrini, the Fine di Dio, the Ellissi, the baroque, the titles, the neon lights – all of these can now be traced back to the same vision. The vision of the future that is beginning. The realization of the hole in 1948 marks the beginning of the spatial thought. Critical thinking, from those years until the present day, has highlighted the importance of the space between the viewer, the canvas and the visual space that was created behind the hole as three-dimensionality.
We have always imagined that our gaze would penetrate those holes and enter the cosmos. Today, with the development of technology and the arrival of the metaverse, a new definition of space and three-dimensionality changes our perception of the Spatial Concept. I would say it is less physical and even more philosophical. It is precisely within the hole that we seek space; we need nothing else. The virtual space. This is what Lucio Fontana created and showed us from the late forties.
At night here in Filicudi, I look at the sky and see the universe. I have always needed to perceive my 190 cm of height to be related to the space that I see – it was unnecessary, but it helped me. Today, with the understanding that the spatial metaverse is the hole, I no longer need that support.
Fontana continues his research for Spatial Concept, and approximately ten years after the creation of the first hole, he begins the series of “tagli” (cuts) – a beautiful aesthetic execution where the wounds on the surface become even more evident. The surface represents the artist’s early education, which is sacrificed to allow the revolution that will lead us into the space in a virtual form.
