Claire Fontaine

CLAIRE FONTAINE is a collective feminist conceptual artist founded by Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill in Paris in 2004. Since 2017 she lives and works in Palermo. Her name is inspired by Duchamp’s iconic ready-made, the urinal entitled Fontaine, and a famous brand of French notebooks (Clairefontaine); it defines a space where the biographies of the artist is not directly connected to their artworks allowing their research to become a space of freedom and desubjectivisation. The use of appropriation and hijacking in her work stems from the same intention: not highlighting the excellence of the artist’s unique singularity but activating the forms and the forces within visual culture and underlining their political content. Claire Fontaine works in video, sculpture, painting and writing.

The current 60th Venice Biennale is entitled Foreigners Everywhere after a seminal series of works by Claire Fontaine. Adriano Pedrosa, the curator of the biennale, took inspiration from the artist’s ongoing series of neons, declaring in the press conference: “The backdrop for the work is a world rife with multifarious crisis and challenges around the movement and existence of people across countries, nations, territories and borders, which reflect the perils and pitfalls of language, translation, nationality, expressing differences and disparities conditioned by identity, race, gender, sexuality, freedom, and human development.”

Recent solo shows include: Star Reply Forward Copy Info Delete, Memphis, Linz, 2022; Siamo con voi nella notte, Museo del 900, Firenze, 2020; I- WE-YES, Studio Concreto, Lecce, 2020; Your Money and Your Life, Galerias Municipais, Lisbona, 2019; La Borsa e la vita, Palazzo Ducale, Genova, 2019; Les printemps seront silencieux, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, 2019; #displaced, Städtische Galerie Norhdorn, Nordhorn, 2019 ; Fortezzuola, Museo Pietro Canonica, Villa Medici, Roma, 2016; Tears, Jewish Museum, New York 2013; 1493, Espacio 1414, San Juan, Puerto Rico 2013; Sell Your Debt, Queen’s Nails, San Francisco 2013; Redemptions, CCA Wattis, San Francisco, 2013; Carelessness causes fire, Audian Gallery, Vancouver 2012; Breakfast starts at midnight, Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation Stockholm 2012; M-A-C-C-H-I-N-A-Z-IO-N-I, Museion, Bolzano, 2012; P.I.G.S., MUSAC, Castilla y León 2011; Economies, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami 2010.