Lucio Fontana and Albisola

Volume published on the occasion of the exhibition BIRTH OF MATTER. LUCIO FONTANA AND ALBISOLA, Albissola Marina / Young, Savona / Art Museum of Palazzo Gavotti (Milani / Cardazzo collection) and Museum of Ceramics, 2 August – 2 December 2018.

This volume was created at the same time as the exhibition Birth of matter. Lucio Fontana and Albisola, strongly desired by the Municipality of Albissola Marina on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Lucio Fontana (Rosary of Santa Fe 1899 – Comabbio, Varese 1968), and scientifically supported by the Department of Italian Studies, Romance, Antichistica, Arts and Entertainment (DIRAAS) of the School of Humanities of the University of Genoa, under the framework agreement that establishes and regulates the collaboration between the two entities, with the aim of promoting the study and enhancement of the historical-artistic heritage of the MuDA, the Diffuse Museum of Albissola Marina.
In 1952 the Municipality of Albissola Marina awarded Lucio Fontana honorary citizenship; the Italo-Argentine artist had started attending the Albisolian ceramic workshops in 1936, operating mainly at the Giuseppe Mazzotti factory, and since then the Albisole (especially Albissola Marina) they had become his second home, an important place for human relations but, mostly, of experimentation and development of his sculptural research.
Fontana, the rest, he was one of the few artists who had the opportunity to work, methodically, in almost all the ceramic workshops that have sprung up in the Albisolese area over the decades: the careful selection of works presented in the exhibition and documented in this volume was conducted precisely with the aim of reconstructing the different stages and relationships with the various workers, cultural personalities, artists and citizens who have crossed the artistic and human path of the artist, in many cases helping to determine its direction.
The title of the exhibition was inspired by a fundamental essay by Enrico Crispolti, written in 1963 for the exhibition Tribute to Fontana, as part of the review Aspects of contemporary art organized at the 16th century Castle of L’Aquila, in which we read: “A primary debate, between the image as a sign of an idea of ​​form ... and matter, as a common origin, unprejudiced, prior to everything: birth of matter ".
Fifty years after the artist's death, encouraged and accompanied by Enrico Crispolti - who was a dear friend of Fontana, as well as the most assiduous and authoritative critic, author of exhibitions and fundamental essays, as well as the three editions of the Catalog Raisonné of sculptures, paintings, settings - we decided, as the scientific committee of the MuDA and the accompanying series of studies MuDA Books, not to limit ourselves to remembering the artist's presence in the area through a temporary exhibition but also to offer an innovative and valuable scientific contribution. The resulting book, simply but significantly titled Lucio Fontana and Albisola, opens with the essay specially written by Crispolti himself, from which the importance of Albisola clearly emerges as a fontanian place and as an avant-garde European center; followed by the interventions of Luca Bochicchio and Paola Valenti - curators, with Crispolti, of the volume and members of the Scientific Committee of Muda - dedicated, respectively, to the detailed reconstruction of Fontana's story of Albisolo, marked by important human and professional relationships, and the architectural and environmental interventions conducted by the artist in Albisola and in the province of Savona; Luca Pietro Nicoletti is responsible for highlighting the relationships that Fontana builds between Albisola, Paris and Milan, putting galleries and exhibition events "online", while Irene Biolchini presents the works of Fontana preserved at the MIC in Faenza and thanks for coming, in primis, to the role of Tullio d’Albisola. The essays are accompanied by extensive photographic documentation not only of works but also of photos of the artist, in part remained unpublished until now. We believe, so, to have succeeded in our intent that, from the beginning, was to return a picture as plural and complete as possible of the long and fruitful relationship between the great artist and the Ligurian territory.

[from Presentation by Leo Lecci]