Sfavillii escrementizi. Lucio Fontana in <<October>>
Jacopo Galimberti
Lucio Fontana exhibited his work several times in the USA in the 1960s, but his efforts 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 difficulties
in establishing a dialogue between «October»’s intellectual ambitions and those of several art historians
trained and working in Italy.