Sfavillii escrementizi. Lucio Fontana in «October»

Lucio Fontana exhibited his work several times in the USA in the 1960s, but his eforts did not elicit much enthusiasm among artists and critics. Twenty years following the artist’s death, Yve-Alain Bois, a French art critic and historian who was member of the editorial board of the journal «October», published two articles in which he devised an analytic framework that began a new phase in the American reception of Fontana’s work. Bois’ insights, as well as those of one of his students, Anthony White, were inextricably linked to «October»’s late 1980’s and 1990’s agenda. This article examines «October»’s reception of Fontana as a paradigmatic example of the way in which scholars and critics associated with this journal have explored the work of Italian artists. This investigation also reveals some of the reasons for the diiculties in establishing a dialogue between «October»’s intellectual ambitions and those of several art historians trained and working in Italy.