Joanne Greenbaum on Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, la Fine di Dio, 1963, oil on canvas, 70.1 x 48.4 inches
I’m not a writer and have hardly ever written about a painting that’s not my own. I chose to focus on Lucio Fontana because the work is almost impossible to write about but he’s probably my favorite artist at the moment. The best paintings seem impervious to the written word because what we actually do as artists cannot easily be translated. Fontana’s work exemplifies the non-verbal communication of painting.
Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, 1963-1964, Oil on canvas, 31 9/10 × 25 3/5 inches
When I think about Fontana’s work, the first thing that comes up are his color choices. Yes, the slashes too and the punctures, but those are about destruction and erasure. Also, violence. So, first the colors: the egg-shaped paintings especially use pure color like yellow, pink, orange, green, or red. They seem so perfect and their flatness turns the painting into an object. I think Fontana’s sculpture practice had a lot to do with his formal choices and the objectness of his paintings. Making ceramic sculpture gives one an immediate understanding of natural shapes, biomorphic and geometric both. It can influence the act and look of painting. Fontana’s work feels perfect in its contradictions: wanting to be pure and then destroying that purity. Putting holes in things both as subject matter and as an act of aggression. The dichotomy of the beautiful color and its deliberate (d)effacement. The clash between color choices and the destruction of the surface is what makes these paintings complex and unknowable.
Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale, 1962-63, Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 31¾ inches
The combination of purity with the marring of the surface makes for something that is both unreachable and kind of dumb at the same time. The best painting is at times the most simple. It’s about just a few things. Fontana’s paintings do become something other than simply paint on canvas. In merging painting and sculpture, the works transform both those practices into a third thing. As yet unnamable. I’m reluctant to talk about a spirituality in these pieces, but they come close to it, resembling an iconic symbolism. It is no accident that his later works incorporated actual religious symbols.
I am drawn to Fontana because, at the moment, I am working in both painting and ceramic sculpture. I’ve come to understand that there is a force that each discipline influences over the other unconsciously. Fontana was dedicated to ceramics before going on to make his iconic slashed paintings. The physical act of destroying the beautifully painted and executed surface is connected to working in clay, where destruction and collapse are inherent to the process.
Joanne Greenbaum, Untitled, 2025, Metallic glazed ceramic, 18.25 x 14 × 11 inches
I know, in my own work, the only way a painting becomes successful is when I do something to ruin or even destroy it. It may not be evident to the viewer what has taken place, but that balance between creation and destruction keeps the painting alive. I think Fontana internalized this process and, in the act of destroying, created something new.
Joanne Greenbaum, Untitled, 2024, Oil, acrylic, and flash marker on canvas, 70 x 65 inches
