A Space for Modernism. Chronicles of an American Journey

Two striking documents retrace the artistic and professional fellowship between Lucio Fontana and Ezio Gribaudo. In the background, the metallic city of New York is the inspiration for new spatial concepts…

L. Fontana, Concetto spaziale 1962-63, buchi su carta assorbente bianca

In 1961, Lucio Fontana was fascinated by the atmosphere of New York. He was there for an exhibition that contributed to make him famous all over the world. New York was a sort of Eliotian Unreal City, a tremendous and mysterious place, in which an artist could project his imagination and increase his stylistic choices. In this year, his new series of metal works was dedicated to New York. Big brass plates, hit by scratches, cuttings, holes, in their uprightness, symbolized majestic skyscrapers and the hectic pulsating of contemporary life. A turning point for Fontana: a year before, he had paid tribute to the city of Venice with a series of poetically inspired canvas. During this fruitful path for a language conquest – that will mark the aesthetical developments of the Nineteenth century – two important personalities were accompanying him: Ezio Gribaudo, artist and editor, whose works of art can be seen as a silent counterpoint to Fontana's concepts; and Enrico Crispolti, young critic, strongly supporting the innovative values of spatialism.

Fifty years after these basic encounters for contemporary art history, the Italian editor Skira has published two precious documents: Ezio Gribaudo e Lucio Fontana. Cronaca di un viaggio americano curated by Stefano Cecchetto, with a preface by Enrico Crispolti, and a dvd, Viaggio a New York by Ezio Gribaudo and Francesco Aschieri. Now, this book and this video are presented at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York!

The book recalls, through epistolar exchanges of that period, the professional relationship and, at the same time, the friendship between Fontana and Gribaudo. Beyond the international success of the artist, the essay by Cecchetto recalls the pivotal phases of his progress: from the discovery of the critical method by Michel Tapié to the professional relationship with gallerist Iris Clert, and to the encounter with London art dealer Robert Tunnard. The movie Viaggio a New York represents an artistic comment to that American journey. The essay Devenir de Fontana by Tapié, curated by Gribaudo for publisher Edizioni d’Arte Fratelli Pozzo, and the exhibition of Fontana's concepts in Martha Jackson Gallery were released in November 1961. After fifty years, Gribaudo has shown his video. Experimental music band Supershock (Paolo Cipriano and Valentina Mitola) has composed an original soundtrack for this document. Guitar, flute, keyboards and a rhythm section highlight, mimetically, the troubled and exuberant camera movement and the brief moments of pause and calm in the metropolitan noise.

More than a precious testimony of Lucio Fontana artistic experience, this movie represents the attempt to transpose a series of topics from the avant-garde. Just like a lot of cinematographic experiments of that period, the framings show a sort of figurative streaming of consciousness. The author was fascinated by the movement output. Fades, lights and shades, sudden changes of point of view become expressionist methods to impress on the film the metropolitan clamour, the fluidity and shine of glass walls and advertising billboards, the majesty of ships, planes and skyscrapers. Rhythm and speed are the two interpretation elements. Moments of astonished contemplation on city structures are compared to restless and obsessive looks on isolated images, out of focus details, unusual contrasts. The persistent hesitation on light buildings defines an operation of metaphysical digging up, in order to look for the crack, the impression that can reveal a trace of truth. The very aesthetic revolution of Lucio Fontana is reflected in the revelation signs that the director can find in the tendencies of contemporary world.

Ivan Fassio

Lucio Fontana nel suo studio 1965 ca.

Ezio Gribaudo, Statua della Libertà