Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonne (Bilingual edition): Catalogue Raisonne of Ceramic Sculptures

Finally on the way, the Catalogue Raisonne of Ceramic Sculptures is the most complete and updated publication exploring this fundamental ambit of Lucio Fontana’s research and production. The result of a project shared with Enrico Crispolti, curator of the entire Catalogue Raisonne collection of Fontana’s work, this impressive publication is edited by Luca Massimo Barbero - eminent scholar specializing in Fontana’s oeuvre and curator of the Catalogue Raisonne of Works on Paper - in collaboration with Silvia Ardemagni and Maria Villa.

An essential and updated research tool, this Catalogue Raisonne is the result of the painstakingly accurate archiving and cataloguing activities carried out by Fondazione Lucio Fontana over more than fifty years, presenting a selection of about 2000 ceramic works made between 1936 and 1966. Organized in chronological and thematic order, within the two formal hemispheres explored by Fontana’s extraordinary earthenware production - the Figurative and the Spatial - works are accompanied by entries offering a precise listing of bibliographical and exhibition references.

Page after page the volume explores the artist’s vast creativity disseminated with experimentations finding an ideal expression in ceramic works investigating and putting into practice an ideal relation between form, colour, matter and space. The publication includes an extensive and analytical essay by Luca Massimo Barbero, offering an exact survey that for the first time highlights and defines Fontana’s exceptional inventive capacity, as well as his role as key player in the 20th-century contemporary art scenario. For this occasion, bibliographical insights are paired with new research and studies on the author’s biography.