Concetto Spaziale, Quanta

Fontana continued his interrogation of space through his Quanta series. This body of work involved arranging a group of small-format slash paintings of various shapes in dynamic patterns on the wall. The title recalls the “quanta” of atomic physics—essentially the smallest amounts of kinetic energy present in a wave—and each individual canvas represents this quantity. The installation included in this exhibition is comprised of nine canvases—with one or two slashes, or the artist’s signature buchi (holes)—painted boldly in red and arranged along the wall. All of the paintings assume an irregular, as opposed to equilateral, geometric form aside from one perfectly circular canvas on the right. Together, these components form a constellation of different shapes that require viewers to consider not only the paintings themselves but also the relationships between them, their forms, and the negative spaces created by the interaction between these canvases and the wall itself. Again, like Bochner, Fontana prioritizes the most neglected space and acknowledges the necessity of taking all spatial components into account. Concetto Spaziale, Quanta demonstrates this perspective along with Fontana’s interest in having his artwork expand beyond the canvas and into the space it occupies. By bringing this desire to fruition, Concetto Spaziale, Quanta becomes, furthermore, part of the experience, environment, and reality of the viewers themselves.