Claire Fontaine is a collective, conceptual and feminist artist founded by Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill in Paris in 2004. Their works have been exhibited worldwide, they are present in numerous museum collections and represent a space of resistance within the artworld to the transformation of artists’ authorship into brands and to the homogenization of formats and contents in times of censorship and crisis. The 60th Venice Biennale in 2024 was titled Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere after the series of their seminal neon works Foreigners Everywhere. Their works were presented in the main venues of the Giardini and Arsenale and with the largest to date installation of 60 neons from the series Foreigners Everywhere suspended on the lagoon in the Gaggiandre. Their works were also featured in the acclaimed Vatican Pavilion in the Venice Biennale of 2024 in the exhibition With Your Eyes installed inside the functioning women’s prison of Giudecca. Several anthologies of their writings have been published in English, French, italian and Portuguese by Semiotext(e), Diaphanes, Derive Approdi and GLAC. Two monographs on the artist’s work have been published by Koenig's Books: Foreigners Everywhere, 2011 and Newsfloor, 2020. The first critical essay on the artist’s practice and philosophical position, Claire Fontaine, a User’s Manual, by Anita Chari was published by Lenz Press in 2024. In 2025 Claire Fontaine was a recipient of the Italian Council with the project Show Less whose first part was presented in Mimosa House, London, and that will open, at WoW Foundation in Rome in 2027, its second iteration alongside her retrospective curated by Julia Bryan Wilson.
Since 2017, Claire Fontaine lives and works in Palermo.
Recent solo shows include: Show Less, Mimosa House, London, 2025; Foreigners Everywhere (Metropolitan Indians), Italian Institute, Kiran Nadar Museum of the Arts, Aga Khan Foundation, New Delhi, 2025; Tra cielo e terra, Museo Riso, Palermo, 2024; Beauty is a Ready-Made, Fondation Hermès, Seoul, 2024; 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, 2016; Art Club, 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-I-O-N-I, Museion, Bolzano, 2012; P.I.G.S., MUSAC, Castilla y León, 2011; Economies, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 2010.
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