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Lugano

Lucio Fontana - Fausto Melotti

Repetto Gallery is delighted to announce the inauguration of its new headquarters in Lugano, with this KENOSIS exhibition dedicated to two of the greatest Italian artists of the twentieth century: Lucio Fontana and Fausto Melotti.

Kenosis: emptying; kenós (emptiness): as renunciation, reduction and transparency, these are key terms by which to indicate the very heart of their poetics. Lucio Fontana (Rosario, Argentina, 1899 – Comabbio, Varese, 1968) and Fausto Melotti (Rovereto, 1901 – Milan, 1986). The exhibition presents a confrontation, a dialogue between two great artists who were also friends, showcasing their elective affinity in freeing art from matter, in making it ever more essential, lyrical and luminous. In breaking out of “our shell, our physical cortex.”

Concetto spaziale

1957
Graffiti, holes, ink and aniline on paper on canvas
65 x 80 cm

Sulamita

1978
Brass and fabric
78 x 34 x 30 cm

Concetto Spaziale (Teatrino)

1966
Water-based paint on canvas and enamelled wood
100 x 100 cm

In Fontana’s work, in his splendid spatial environments and his famous cuts and holes, starting from the late 1940s, a clear, clean, radical essentiality in deep and minimal gestures very much espoused Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s favourite motto: Less is more. His fortunate, elegant reduction conquers more space and higher light. In the very clear-minded words of Melotti, “Fontana’s ‘cut’ is the emblematic need to get out of the informal jungle.”

Tema e Variazioni XI

1981 (1984)
Brass
65 x 148 x 31 cm

Concetto Spaziale, Attese

1960
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cm

Untitled

Untitled
1979 ca.
Plaster and brass
50 x 65 cm

Denominatore

1970
Brass, painted fabric, plastic and bronze
75 x 60 x 35 cm

In Melotti, the same reduction, grace and transparency may be found in a less vertical but more horizontal declination: the ideal horizontality of the ancient frieze, freely taken up in the new and diverse metopes of the story, of the narrative, of the archaic and classical myth.

Nel Futuro

1977
Varnished brass
175 x 74 x 60 cm

Concetto Spaziale

1966-68
Holes, tears and graffiti on paper
46.2 x 58.8 cm

Concetto Spaziale Taglio

1968
White porcelain
42.5 x 26 cm

Piccolo Giardino Pensile

1975
Brass and plastic
32 x 22 x 18 cm

"L’enigma tempo-spazio si fa luce al primo volo dell’anima."
Fausto Melotti

"The time-space puzzle becomes light on the first flight of the soul."
Fausto Melotti

Donna allo specchio

1948
Polychrome glazed ceramic
29 x 19 x 14 cm

Guerrieri

1957
Painted terracotta
D 47 cm

La creazione del mondo

1978
Brass, painted fabric, plaster
90 x 74 x 36 cm

Concetto Spaziale. Attese.

1962
water-based paint on canvas
65 x 50 cm

Untitled

1973 ca.
Brass
65 x 12 x 62 cm

Gli Sposi

1982
Brass, fabric and ceramic
21 x 34 x 13 cm

Cristo

1956-57
Glazed polychrome ceramic
38 x 15 x 12 cm

Framento di specchiera con testina

1950-1955
Polychrome glazed ceramic
25 x 13.5 x 10.5 cm

"Una farfalla nello spazio eccita la mia fantasia; liberatomi dalla retorica, mi perdo nel tempo e inizio i miei buchi."
Lucio Fontana

"A butterfly in space excites my imagination; freed from the rhetoric, I get lost in time and start my holes."
Lucio Fontana

Concetto Spaziale

1962-63
Engobed and glazed terracotta with luster, holes and graffiti
28 x 38 x 5 cm

L'uscita delle Valchirie

1980
Brass, painted fabric
64.5 x 59 x 38 cm

Contappunto Piano

1973
Brass
48 x 140 x 10 cm
Ed. 13 of 99 + 5 AP

Kore

1954 ca.
Glazed ceramic
45.6 x 9.3 Ø cm

Vaso

1965 ca.
Polychrome glazed ceramic
57 x 13 cm

Vaso

1960 ca.
Polychrome glazed ceramic
H 56 x Ø 11 cm

Brocca piatta

1958 ca.
Polychrome glazed ceramic
48.4 x 28.6 x 12.1 cm