The exhibition, presented in collaboration with the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, brilliantly displays Fontana's extraordinary body
of work from 1899 to 1968, including pivotal categories such as primitive and
abstract sculptures, drawings, polychrome ceramics, Spatialist
works, punctured canvases,
Art Informel works, installations, Tagli (cuts), Nature, Fine di Dio, Olii, Venezie, Metalli, and Teatrini.
Chapter 1: Things Must be Pulverized:
Abstract Expressionism Charts the move from figurative to
abstract painting as the dominant style
of painting (1940s & 50s) Key artists discussed: Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko Chapter 2: Wounded Painting:
Informel in Europe and Beyond Meanwhile in Europe:
abstract painters immediate responses to the horrors
of World War II (1940s & 50s) Key artists discussed: Jean Dubuffet, Lucio Fontana, Viennese Aktionism, Wols Chapter 3: Post-War Figurative Painting Surveys those artists who defiantly continued to make figurative
work as Abstraction was rising to dominance - including Social Realists (1940s & 50s) Key artists discussed: Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Alice Neel, Pablo Picasso Chapter 4: Against Gesture - Geometric Abstraction The development
of a rational, universal language
of art - the opposite
of the highly emotional
Informel or
Abstract Expressionism (1950s and early 1960s) Key artists discussed: Lygia Clark, Ellsworth Kelly, Bridget Riley, Yves Klein Chapter 5: Post-Painting Part 1: After Pollock In the aftermath
of Pollock's death: the early days
of Pop, Minimalism and Conceptual painting in the USA (1950s and early 1960s) Key artists discussed: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly Chapter 5: Anti Tradition - Pop Painitng How painting survives against growth
of mass visual culture: photography and television - if you can't beat them, join them (1960s and 70s) Key artists discussed: Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol Chapter 6: A transcendental high
art: Neo Expressionism and its Discontents The continuation
of figuration and expressionism in the 1970s and 80s, including many artists who have only been appreciated in later years (1970s & 80s) Key artists discussed: Georg Baselitz, Jean - Michel Basquiat, Anselm Kiefer, Julian Schnabel, Chapter 7: Post-Painting Part II: After Pop A new era in which figurative and
abstract exist side by side rather than polar opposites plus painting expands beyond the canvas (late 1980s to 2000s) Key artists discussed: Tomma Abts, Mark Grotjahn, Chris Ofili, Christopher Wool Chapter 8: New Figures, Pop Romantics Post-cold war, artists use paint to create a new kind
of «pop
art» - primarily figurative - tackling cultural, social and political issues (1990s to now) Key artists discussed: John Currin, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Neo Rauch, Luc Tuymans