The Soulages Museum in Rodez exhibits the works of the Italian artist Lucio Fontana, a precursor of spatialism

The museum exhibits 85 creations by the artist whose main source of inspiration was the future.

It is a real invitation to travel into the cosmic world of Lucio Fontana. Sculptures, works on canvas and paper, all his creations are inspired by the future. Entitled A future is a state. There was indeed a future, The exhibition can be seen at the Soulages Museum in Rodez (Occitanie) until the 3rd november.

The Soulages Museum presents the works of an artist who defied artistic laws. Lucio Fontana is the pioneer of spatialism. Founded around 1948, it introduced this new dimension in art, which Benoit Decron, curator and director of the Soulages museum, defines: “Lthe conquest of space, of the stars, of the moon. It is a form of romanticism of spaces.”

In this journey into space, he exports these meteorite cubes sculpted with vortices with ceramic: a Spatial conceptin Italian. “It’s a cube with a lot of energy, he made it alive because he thinks that matter should always be alive,” explains contemporary art historian Paolo Campiglio.

Lucio Fontana goes beyond painting and sculpture, which he considers limited. He has also produced “ambient”waves of undulating neon lights, which he places on ceilings to bring a room to life during the day. Opening new perspectives is what has always driven the artist whose motto was: “do not freeze space”.

In total, 85 works are exhibited at the Soulages Museum in Rodez. A future is a state. There was indeed a future was designed in 2020, at the request of Pierre Soulages who died in 2022.

Seduced by the current of spatialism that the Italian invented, Pierre Soulages saw in Lucio Fontana a true artistic soul mate. They had already met, and since then, Soulages dreamed of creating this exhibition in his museum. He had even equipped himself with a Spatial Concepta work dating from 1968, in his collection. But his favorite works were the paintings incised by slits. Pierre Soulages admired Fontana’s inventiveness and undeniable avant-gardism.

In France, since the retrospectives of the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou in 1987 and the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris in 2014, no other exhibition has hosted this collection. This new exhibition at the Soulages Museum in Rodez is a unique opportunity to discover the world of Lucio Fontana, one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

Exhibition “There was a future” – Soulages Museum, Fairground garden, avenue Victor Hugo, 12000 Rodez – until November 3, 2024.