Klein & Fontana in Milan

Based on the exhibition:
Klein & Fontana
Exhibition at the Museo del Novecento, Milano
22 Oct. 2015-15 Mar. 2015

Klein & Fontana 

@ Milan

The motive behind the exhibition Klein and Fontana at the Museo del Novecento, located to the right of the famous Piazza Duomo of Milan, is to ‘reflect on the European cultural identity as the result of the visual analysis between two of the most important individuals of the art world of the past century’; and, by default, restoring Milan as the ‘heart of Europe’. The major institutions that are accredited with the assembly of the works include Fondazione Lucio Fontana of Milan, Comune di Milano, Archives Yves Klein of Paris, and Museo del Novecento con Electa. 

Even if Klein and Fontana’s compositions aren’t works that easily come to mind, their influence is without a doubt visually evident in their offspring artists, individuals inspired by their concepts and materials. The chronological presentation provides a basis to evaluate or at least visually perceive the artistic process and generally understand the theoretical development. An additional, but clearly important, reinforcement of that artists’ appraisal, by default, is the location within the city and museum itself, a monument to the important works of, for the majority, Milanese artists beginning in the early 1900s and concluding with current contemporary works. Klein and Fontana are, by association, elevated to the international standard of European artists such as Picasso and Kandinsky and local artists such as Balla, Carrà, Martini, and de Chirico.

Whether the viewer ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ the works on display for whatever reason, as a an export or amateur, it is relative to consider both the period in which Klein and Fontana practiced and the concepts behind their compositions. Unfortunately, what was essentially missing, but equally important as the works themselves, in the exhibition was the descriptions of the context to which they produced and the general biographical summarises. Before the choice of viewing, or after having visited, or just out of simple general ‘art’ knowledge of the institutionalised ‘masters’, there are details that add to the behind the scene insight into the internationally appraised artists and explain why they remain to be an influential inspiration on the current contemporary art movement.

Currently, each artist remains in high regards, as demonstrated by their recent auctions. In the 2008 auction of MG9 (1962) of the monochromatic gold painting was sold at $21 million and in the 2012 selling of FC1 (Fire Color, 1962) for $36.4 million. Fontana’s current appraisal is evidenced during the 2008 Sothoby’s auction of Concetto Spaziale, la fine di dio (1963) which sold for £10.32 million.

Yves Klein: The Nouveau Realist

Klein, RP6, 1961
Yves Klein is considered to be an important figure of the post-war European art movement. A son of two painters, an ArtInformel mother and a post-Impressionist father, who was invited, informally as a boy, to the family parties, hosts to some of the Abstract movement of Paris. In the 1940s Klein became friends with Armad Fernandez and Claude Pascal who not only influenced his initial choice involving the celestial collection but also helped form the Nouveau Réalisme movement of the 1960s, alongside Pierre Restany.

Klein, ANT 36, 1958

Klein’s career obscures the boundaries between experimentation and criticism. He took the viewer’s reaction and experience in high regard and concern. Responses to shows at Club des Solitais (Paris, 1955) and Gallery Colette Allendy (Paris, 1956) of the monochrome pieces of yellow, orange, pink, red, and blue had a relatively negative reaction on Klein who felt that his work was not understood as he had intended. The works were interpreted for decorative purposes, appreciated by viewers interested in adding bright abstraction to the interiors of their homes. In order to direct his viewers more clearly, Klein took steps to ‘train’ his audience by altering the exhibition experience itself. The interiors and display of his one man shows became as important as his compositions. The experimentations of the mono-apparent colors, hidden by an extensive study of hue retention, were carefully studied alongside their placement and mounting in the exhibition spaces. In 1958, at the Iris Clert Gallery, Klein took his production a step further where the ‘space’ was the ‘art’; an installation based on the emptying and coloring of the entire interiors. The windows were painted blue while the walls, and only one piece of furniture, a cabinet, were completely covered in white. The unusual show caused a stir, generating a line of enthusiasts waiting to ‘experience’ Klein.


Klein, Portrait Relief of Claude Pascal, 1962
Klein, Venus Blue (S12), 1960
It is unclear whether Klein’s exhibitions were intended to to educate or contempt his audience; but, whatever the reasoning, the result only expanded his European market. With the progress of his work it appears that his audience began to visually apprehend his collections allowing Klein to experiment with the depth, tools, and materials of his production. Nude women replaced the brush to produce ‘Anthropometry’ collection. His canvas in relief blurred the lines between sculpture and painting. Casting famous sculptures in their‘edited’ forms in monochromatic colors, Klein mounted the pieces onto white canvases in attempt to reinterpret and provide new medium for the ‘classical’, symbols easily perceived by the general public, even in their minimalised forms.
In the 1900s Klein was quoted for saying he wished to ‘play with human feelings’ as he experimented with new ways to not only look at art but to question the field itself. Perhaps due to his parental heritage, or his own twist to Nouveau Realism, or simply for his historical separation and individualisation, Klein has been hard to place by contemporary critics and theorists. He seems to be in limbo between his own founded movement and neo-Dada.

Lucio Fontana: Changing Perceptions

Fontana, Concetto Spaziale (51 B17), 1951
Lucio Fontana, a famous Italian artist and theorist. The movements he is most connected to are Spatialism, to which he founded, and Arte Povera. Fontana graduated from Accademia di Brera, a student of sculptor Adolfo Wildt. Fontana participated in the Abstract and Expressionist movements of Italy and France after his year spent at the academy. In the 1930s, he joined both the Abstract-Création of Paris and the Corrente of Milan which not only helped form his personal style further, it was also a period which had a great influence on his foundation of the Altamira Academy in Argentina, his birth country. Abroad, his ‘studies’ expanded his theories of Spazialismo that he documented in five manifestos between 1947 and 1952, which he later brought to Milan during the city’s efforts to rebuilt after its destruction during WWII. This period was a time of experimentation, taking spatial concepts through the application of new materiality of the time, particularly evident in the avant guard artistic approach to neon lights. It was also a time where he played with the simple slashing monochromatic canvases in ‘an art for the Space Age’; which not only began to look at a canvas for what is taken away, what is destroyed, rather than what is added, what is joined.


Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, 59T16, 1959-60

Fontana, Installation for the Milano Triennale, 1951

Fontana’s compositions were not simple art object but elements assembled in space. This required him to actually ‘stage’ the scene. Fontana even visually organized his canvases, demanding a specific layout. The gallery was not responsible for the exhibition for Fontana studied the spaces closely before installing his works; recreating his compositions within each display. His concerns with presentation blurred the lines between permanent art (the object) and the installation (the display). The necessity for physical control took his production a step further in dimension through the collaboration with architects, the professionals of the other ‘art’ form. Today his works, evidently outside of their original exhibition context, can be seen all over the globe. His jewellery line is reserved for Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Bibliography

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17. Whitfield, Sarah. Lucio Fontana. (University of California Press, 2000), pp. 68, 172 
18. Yves Klein Archives. Chelsea Hotel Manifesto. 1961. Retrieved April 26, 2013.