Spatialism

Spatialism is an art movement founded by the Argentine-Italian artist Lucio Fontana in Milan in 1947, proposing to synthesize colour, sound, space, movement and time into a new kind of art. Its ideas were announced in the Manifiesto blanco, published in Buenos Aires in 1946 and followed by five more manifestos: Spatialism repudiated the illusory or 'virtual' space of traditional easel painting and sought to project colour and form into real space with up-to-date techniques such as neon lighting and television. Fontana's gestures embodied it — the black-painted room environment of 1947 that anticipated environment art, the stabbed canvases begun in 1949, and the razor-slashed 'Spatial Concept' canvases from 1959. Though his theories stayed vague, Fontana's outlook was deeply influential, treating art as gesture and event rather than enduring object.

Defining characteristics

• Punched and slashed canvases ('buchi' from 1949, 'tagli' from 1959) that open the picture plane into real space
• Rejection of illusory painted space in favor of actual physical space
• Synthesis of colour, light, sound, movement and time in a single gesture
• New technology — neon light, television — used as artistic material
• Art as gesture and performance: the act outweighs the finished object

Key figures

• Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) — Argentine-Italian founder who punctured and slashed canvas to reach real space
• Beniamino Joppolo (1906-1963) — Sicilian painter and theorist associated with Fontana's Movimento Spaziale

Example works

• Manifiesto blanco (White Manifesto) — Lucio Fontana (1946)
• Black Spatial Environment — Lucio Fontana (1947)
• Spatial Concept: Waiting — Lucio Fontana (1960)

Sources

• Spatialism - Wikipedia encyclopedia
• Lucio Fontana - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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