Manu-Facture: The Ceramics of Lucio Fontana

This is the first museum exhibition dedicated exclusively to the ceramic work of Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), one of the most innovative, and in his unique way irreverent, artists of the twentieth century. While Fontana is best known for his iconic, slashed and punctured canvases of the 1950s and ‘60s, Manu-Facture: The Ceramics of Lucio of Fontana, organized by art historian Sharon Hecker, casts a spotlight on a lesser known but essential part of his oeuvre: his work in clay, which he began in Argentina in the 1920s and continued to explore throughout his life.

Through over seventy works, including several never previously exhibited, on loan from renowned public and private collections, the show seeks to illuminate the full scope of Fontana’s sculptural vision in clay, revealing how over the years he regarded it as a rich, generative site of experimentation. His ceramic practice unfolded across several decades and vastly different contexts: from his early work in Argentina to his return to Fascist-era Italy, to another long stay in Argentina, and again in Italy after World War II during reconstruction and the later economic boom.

Manu-Facture: The Ceramics of Lucio Fontana invites visitors to reconsider Fontana not only as a pioneer of Spazialismo and Conceptual Art but also as a materially engaged artist deeply attuned to the tactile and expressive potential of clay. The show reveals a more informal, intimate, collaborative side of the artist—rooted in clay’s soft physicality and shaped by enduring relationships, such as with the ceramist and poet Tullio d’Albisola and the Mazzotti ceramic workshop in Albisola.

Manu-Facture: The Ceramics of Lucio Fontana is accompanied by an illustrated catalogpublished by Marsilio Arte, featuring essays by curator Hecker, as well as Raffaele Bedarida, Luca Bochicchio, Elena Dellapiana, Aja Martin, Paolo Scrivano, and Yasuko Tsuchikane, all dedicated to Fontana’s ceramic practice and its historical, social, and cultural contexts.