The Collateral Event is promoted and organized by ASSOCIAZIONE ARTE CONTINUA APS in collaboration with the Lucio Fontana Foundation and FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano, with the support of GALLERIA CONTINUA San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana, Rome, São Paulo, Paris, B17.
Two masters of sculpture, Lucio Fontana and Antony Gormley, will meet for the first time in a presentation of drawings, works on paper, and sculptures. The exhibition will take place in a unique venue: the Olivetti Store, owned by Assicurazioni Generali and entrusted to the care and management of FAI, an architectural jewel designed by Carlo Scarpa in 1958, located under the arcades of Piazza San Marco in Venice. The dossier exhibition Lucio Fontana / Antony Gormley was conceived and curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, one of the foremost experts on Lucio Fontana and scientific advisor at the Foundation dedicated to the artist. Built around a close dialogue between works that reflect the implications of light and space for both sculptors, the exhibition will revolve around a selection of drawings by Lucio Fontana made between 1946 and 1968, and a series of drawings, sketchbooks, and models that encompass all aspects of Antony Gormley's research, along with the presence of several sculptures by both artists. Lucio Fontana: I pierce; infinity passes through there, light passes through, there is no need to paint […] instead, everyone thought I wanted to destroy: but it’s not true, I built, not destroyed. Antony Gormley: Lucio Fontana spent a lifetime revealing that space existed behind appearance and inviting us to live it. I am pleased to have this opportunity to enter into dialogue with Fontana through objects and drawings in which body and space are continuously seen as equivalent means of understanding. Luca Massimo Barbero: Fontana and Gormley express sculpture beyond time. In the works of Lucio Fontana, space becomes a timeless and ahistorical place. Sign and body engage in an intimate dialogue in the conceptual path that supports Antony Gormley’s research and leads to a total break with the imposed boundaries between inside and outside, space and time.
