Spacial Explorations, curated by Francesco Tedeschi, presents a selection of artworks from the Intesa Sanpaolo twentieth century art collection comprising paintings and sculptures highly representative of Italian art, in particular that of the second half of the century.
The exhibition, that accompanies Lucio Fontana: On the Threshold at the Met Breuer, includes two sections exploring and comparing the artistic creations produced at a time when art imagined further worlds, when creativity was fueled by scientific discoveries and space race events – a historical season that culminated exactly fifty years ago with the Apollo missions and the first manned moon landing.
The exhibition project emanates from the importance of Lucio Fontana’s production within the framework of the second post war period in Italy, with particular focus on Milan, a city that played an important role on the European art scene of the time. By advocating a conception of art that placed itself beyond divisions in terms of painting, sculpture and architecture, Fontana became the leader of Spatialism, a movement that set out to provide a metaphorical and fantastic interpretation of the relation between art and science, in the light of the developments of atomic and quantum physics and exploration of space.
Alongside Fontana’s works, the display includes important works by exponents of the Spatialism and of the Nuclear Movement of the fifties, and also artworks by the Azimut artists and by those embracing the new artistic scene that developed in the early sixties. Crippa, Dova, Tancredi, Deluigi, Scanavino, Baj e Dangelo from the 50’s, e Manzoni, Castellani, Bonalumi, Anceschi, Boriani, Colombo, De Vecchi, Varisco, Dadamaino e Arturo Vermi from the 60’s.
The exhibition is open Monday to Friday – 10am to 5pm