Lucio Fontana began to puncture his canvases with holes (or buchi) around 1949, and then repeated the gesture in his ceramic works. In one regard, the holes simply mark the movement of the artist’s hand, much like the brushstroke in Abstract Expressionist painting. Yet for Fontana the perforations were more significant—by literally ripping into the pictorial surface, Fontana opened up the picture plane, the space occupied by the viewer, to the space that lies beyond. Fontana understood this gesture and its result a penetration into the limitless possibilities of a boundless universe, stating “I make a hole…and from there I enter into infinity.”

Here, a single, central buco, an aperture into infinity, punctures the surface of a rectangular ceramic slab painted black, and incised with a round shape of graffito. The dramatic opening, with irregular edges that suggest the explosion and energy of the gesture, perforates the platter completely, revealing the space behind and beyond the surface. It is, furthermore, encircled by an inscribed line which perhaps suggests the shape of an egg, which recurs frequently in Fontana's oeuvre. In the artist's works, such circular and ovoid forms, often organically or biomorphically rendered, signify the birth of a new idea, a new concept of art challenging every fundamental that had come before. Fontana's signature is also clearly visible along the bottom of the ceramic, testifying to the artist's desire to demonstrate his authorship of this profound work.