Venues:
Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, October 10, 2006–January 21, 2007.

Curator:
Luca Massimo Barbero.

Artist:
Lucio Fontana.

Exhibition description:
This exhibition brought together for the first time Fontana’s Venice paintings with his New York series of metals, both from the early 1960s. In 1961, for a few months, Lucio Fontana worked on an exceptional group of canvases: the Venice series. After years of titling his works Spatial Concept, this was the first time Fontana dedicated his production to a place and gave his paintings lyrical titles, such as Venice Was All in Gold or Night of Love in Venice. The series was shown the same year at Palazzo Grassi, Venice. In that same year, 1961, Michel Tapié organized an exhibition of the Venice series at the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York. It was Fontana’s first solo exhibition in the United States, signaling him as a new 'master' of the international avant-garde. Fontana was, in turn, fascinated by New York, and while the Venice series was on display at the Martha Jackson Gallery he enthusiastically sketched the city which came to form the basis for the metal works that he produced upon his return: the New York series. This series consisted of large sheets of shiny and scratched copper, pierced and gouged, cut through by vertical gestures that simulate the force of New York construction. The dispersal of the Venice series and many of the New York works into museums and private collections, in Europe, the United States and Japan, necessitated two years of work during which curator Luca Massimo Barbero established the location of every painting exhibited in 1961. As a result, Barbero was able to provide the public with the most comprehensive presentation of Fontana's work in that seminal moment. Newly discovered archival material, drawings and photographs augmented the exhibition.

Partnerships:
Under the auspices of the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan.

Catalogue:
Barbero, Luca Massimo. Lucio Fontana. Venezia / New York. Venezia: Peggy Guggenheim Collection and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2006.

Two catalogues, in English and Italian. Catalogues include prefaces by Thomas Krens (Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection), Umberto Vattani (President, Italian Trade Commission), Giancarlo Galan (President, Regione del Veneto) and Maurizio Faroni (Chief Executive Officer, Banca Aletti). Essays by Luca Massimo Barbero, Enrico Crispolti, Paolo Campiglio and Barbara Ferriani. An appendix includes Fontana’s “Manifesto tecnico.”

Library location: GUGG PGC 206 .05 (English), GUGG PGC 2006 .04 (Italian).