Concetto Spaziale (1962-63) is a striking example of Lucio Fontana’s revolutionary Spatialist vision. This work, its surface punctured by two buchi (holes), manifests the artist’s lifelong pursuit of the infinite and the unknown, reflecting the era’s fascination with space exploration. The high-gloss glaze enhances its cosmic resonance, capturing and transforming light to lend it an ever-shifting presence.

A seminal piece within Fontana’s celebrated Concetto Spaziale series, this ceramic globe directly references humanity’s attempt to map and understand the world in three dimensions, only to have its order disrupted by Fontana’s violent interventions. These incisions recall the radical tagli (cuts) of his canvases, opening a gateway into the fourth dimension. The work balances the primordial with the futuristic, embodying creation, destruction, and infinity in equal measure.

Fontana’s engagement with ceramics was deeply rooted in his artistic practice, influenced by his experiences at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres and his Futurist ceramic production in Albisola. By the late 1950s, he had fully crystallised his Spatialist principles, first articulated in the Manifesto Blanco (1946) and later embodied in his Nature series – terracotta and bronze sculptures evoking the boundless silence of extraterrestrial worlds. Concetto Spaziale revisits and refines these themes, transforming fired earth into a topography of cosmic tension.

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, an event that deeply inspired Fontana. Fascinated by the physical and mental strains of the astronaut, Fontana remarked on the increasing intensity of his 1962 works: “They represent the pain of man in space. The pain of the astronaut, squashed, compressed, with instruments sticking out of his skin, is different from ours... He who flies in space is a new type of man, with new sensations, not least painful ones” (L. Fontana, quoted in Lucio Fontana, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 2000, p. 197). The ruptures in the present work reflect Gagarin’s orbit and highlight the vulnerability of the human body in space.

With an exceptional provenance, this work was originally a gift from Fontana to Dutch collector Jan and Ingeborg van der Marck before being acquired by Vidal Sassoon in 1986. Its exhibition history is equally illustrious. It was the only ceramic featured in the 1977 Guggenheim retrospective and has been included in major Fontana exhibitions, including Lucio Fontana: The Spatial Concept of Art (Walker Art Center, 1966), Lucio Fontana 1899-1968: A Retrospective (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1977), and Lucio Fontana: On the Threshold (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, 2019). It is also documented in Luca Massimo Barbero’s Catalogo Ragionato delle Sculture Ceramiche (Vol. II, p. 566, no. 62-63 SOS 29).

A rare and significant work, Concetto Spaziale (1962-63) is a testament to Fontana’s ability to reshape materiality, perception, and space, offering an enduring dialogue between the earthly and the infinite.