Infinity and Beyond

The Italian avant-gardist Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) is famous for the paintings he slashed or stabbed in the latter part of his long career, but he also produced wildly abstract polychrome ceramics, figurative sculptures, and some of the very first art installations: trippy rooms lit with black lights or swirling neon. The artist’s largest ever retrospective, at Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne, on view from April 25 through August 24, will attempt to capture all of those disparate facets. “There has always been one part of his work that has been overshadowed, because it was too different,” says Choghakate Kazarian, who curated the exhibition with Sébastien Gokalp. “This is the first time that all his periods and all his materials will be shown.” Even devoted Fontana fans may be surprised, thanks to what Kazarian describes as the “exceptional loans” secured for the occasion. “Most of the works have been hard to reach.” No longer.