To reconstruct the Venice series seemed impossible; they are eleven paintings of 150 cm x 150) by Lucio Fontana exhibited together just in two occasions, both dating back to the far 1961. The first time was between July and October in Venice, at Palazzo Grassi, during the exhibition “Art and contemplation”; the second was in November, at the gallery of Martha Jackson in New York. They subsequently went astray into different directions, into public and private collections, up to Tokyo. Luca Massimo Barbero, curator of the exhibition “Lucio Fontana. Venice /New York “, showing at the Peggy Guggenheim collection until September 24, has done the miracle. This is a special event, and to this it has to be added the other half of the exhibition, the one which has New York as protagonist: they are other eleven works, which have never been exhibited together before. It was in that very occasion of the exhibition at the Jackson gallery that Fontana (he was already 62 by that time) went to New York for the first time: he was fascinated by the city’s dynamism and he started abruptly to record his impressions in his drawings, which underlined the vertical growth of buildings and the convulsive lines of traffic. A comparison between two cities, the sensual, Byzantine and baroque Venice, city of the past, and New York, pulsing with movement and projected into the future, in fact city of the future.

Two different cities that needed different techniques in order to be represented.

And this is the other important aspect of the exhibition, Fontana’s amazing ability to be renewed. The Venice cycle was conceived in 1959, a turning point year, the one of the first experiments with cuts, of which are exhibited some examples. Along this continuity line, underlined also by the works’title “Spatial concept” the artist starts a materic new innovation. Maybe he is inspired by the magmatic substance of which the city is composed, he uses a particular new acrylic resin (analyzed for the occasion) very dense, that dries rapidly, so that it allows the artist a gestural intervention. He opens holes, carves cuts, inserts precious stones. Characterized by gold and Byzantine magnificence.

( Midday at San Marco square under the sun), of the sinuosity of baroque shapes ( baroque Venice); of silver reflections of light (Venice Moon) and of the splendour of starry nights ( in San Marco square by night with Teresita, his wife) New York is a different city, it changes the format of works, which are all projected in vertical, as in the triptych “Spatial concept, New York 10” ; the material, the metal changes: copper, hard enough to exemplify the bone structure of skyscrapers as in “Spatial concept, New York Skyscrapers” or the more pliable aluminium which is apt to be crossed by dynamic lines as in “Spatial concept, New York 14”

Differently from the Venice cycle, completed in a short time, the New York one has a longer origin: Fontana goes on working on this theme until his death in 1968. As a foreword to these two cycles, we have a synthesis of the works dated from 1947 to 1967 which shows Fontana’s ongoing ability of renewing , also in the use and variety of means, even inside a clear and reaffirmed continuity. Spatial concept, 1949, a refined paper on canvas, anticipates for certain aspects the interventions on canvas which will lead, ten years after, to the cuts revolution, whilst “Spatial concept, 1961” (oil and cuts on canvas, silver) moves definitely towards baroque shapes. It is at the same time possible to find exact matches: “Spatial concept, Iris Clert” of 1961 is much similar in his golden splendour to “Spatial concept, Venice was all gold” also of 1961, which is the exhibition’s logo. Not a copy, but a variation as in musical scores.