Between 1958 and 1968 Fontana created the group of works in his studio in Milan that were known as Concetti Spaziali, Attese, which he himself described as tagli [slashes] and which were the logical consequence of the perforations and holes [buchi] in previous sculptures, ceramics and on canvas.
Through their precision, aesthetic presence and uniqueness, they became the characteristic creations that shaped the image of Fontana’s work.
Initially, he created works in paper, but then also on canvases, which he perforated, thus opening up a three-dimensional space. Starting from this time, he entitled all his works Concetti Spaziali – spatial concepts. The physical penetration of what originally was two-dimensional, and the illusionary picture surface in the figural representation destroyed irrevocably not only this representational space limited by the edges of the picture field, but also the pictorial function of the representation, imitation or illusion. The space in the picture thus became real; the pictorial space itself beyond the picture surface became unlimited.
