An Exhibition at Museo del Novecento (Milan) inviting people to reason about European cultural identity thanks to the analysis of the relationship between two of the most important personalities in the art world of the last century. The exhibition investigates, from an unprecedented perspective, the parallel path – between 1957 and 1962, between Milan and Paris – of Yves Klein (1928 – 1962) and Lucio Fontana (1899 – 1968), in the full autonomy of artistic originality of each.
Their creative story, intertwined with a surprising personal bond, is told through over 90 works and a very rich documentation of photographs, period films and archival papers. In January 1957, Yves Klein held his first solo show of blue monochromes at the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan. On the occasion, Lucio Fontana was among the first buyers of a monochrome by the French artist and in the early 1960s he became one of his most important collectors in Italy. Fontana’s spatial openings (physical and conceptual) find correspondence in Klein’s progress from monochrome to void. Both evoke an immaterial, cosmic or spiritual space, making a historical reference to the gold of medieval painting and Giotto’s blue, but also by directly using natural elements such as light, fire and air, or by drawing inspiration from the suggestions of astronomical images. . We make an appointment to visit this interesting exhibition at 7.00 pm in front of the entrance to the Palazzo del Novecento Museum in Piazza Duomo on January 22, 2015, followed by a convivial meeting for dinner at “La Collina Pistoiese”, a historic Tuscan trattoria Milan.
