Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form.
Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait.
The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women.
“Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. […] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine
Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023
Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977.
Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. .
Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato
Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form.
Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait.
The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women.
“Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. […] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine
Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023
Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977.
Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. .
Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato
Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form.
Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait.
The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women.
“Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. […] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine
Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023
Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977.
Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. .
Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato
Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form.
Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait.
The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women.
“Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. […] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine
Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023
Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977.
Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. .
Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato
Among the side events of the 60th Biennale d’Arte, I’m happy to see Cosmic Garden – an exhibition that is very dear to me, a collaboration between Indian artists Madhvi Parekh, Manu Parekh and @karishmaswali77, promoted by the Chanakya Foundation and curated by @maria_alicata and @ugolinip. Cosmic Garden celebrates the pluralistic beauty of Indian craftsmanship and indigenous artistic traditions.
I hope you get a chance to see it!
Among the side events of the 60th Biennale d’Arte, I’m happy to see Cosmic Garden – an exhibition that is very dear to me, a collaboration between Indian artists Madhvi Parekh, Manu Parekh and @karishmaswali77, promoted by the Chanakya Foundation and curated by @maria_alicata and @ugolinip. Cosmic Garden celebrates the pluralistic beauty of Indian craftsmanship and indigenous artistic traditions.
I hope you get a chance to see it!
Among the side events of the 60th Biennale d’Arte, I’m happy to see Cosmic Garden – an exhibition that is very dear to me, a collaboration between Indian artists Madhvi Parekh, Manu Parekh and @karishmaswali77, promoted by the Chanakya Foundation and curated by @maria_alicata and @ugolinip. Cosmic Garden celebrates the pluralistic beauty of Indian craftsmanship and indigenous artistic traditions.
I hope you get a chance to see it!
This collection was inspired by Marlene Dietrich and her unique way of combining and playing with the feminine and masculine aspects of her personality. From 1947 on, Dietrich will find in the various expressions of this New Look the balance between masculine tailoring, day ensembles and sophisticated evening wear, leading her to pronounce the famous sentence: « No Dior, No Dietrich ».
I couldn’t be happier to have brought this collection to NY. Thank you to everyone who made it possible.
Thank you to the beautiful girls who walked the show tonight. It was such an honour to present my first prèt-a-porter collection at the @brooklynmuseum
@foreignerseverywhere is a ready-made, feminist and conceptual artist, founded in Paris in 2004 by Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill. Claire Fontaine was born as a shared space that was named after a female person of French nationality in order to investigate the current condition and the moral and economic crises affecting the planet.
Claire Fontaine has proclaimed herself a ready-made artist and has started to develop a version of neo- conceptual art often resembling other people’s work. She generally works with appropriation on a formal level and diverts contents, using sculpture, installations, videos and painting to create an emotionally charged critique of authors and forms of authority in this phase of capitalism. Claire Fontaine is a queer entity, an unpredicted subject that modernises the concepts of the feminist philosopher Carla Lonzi. In occasion of Dior’s Fall Winter 2024 show that will be presented at the @BrooklynMuseum, Claire Fontaine renewed her collaboration with @Dior by creating a special installation where the show will take place. The installation will pay tribute to the artist Suzanne Santoro and the generation of women who fought and continue to fight for women’s rights.
Being in the wonderful @BrooklynMuseum together with Suzanne Santoro and @foreignerseverywhere is a dream come true for me.
I have longed wishes to hold a @dior show here in New York and, in particular, at the @BrooklynMuseum, one of the few public institutions with a permanent wing dedicated to feminist art.
I am humbled and overjoyed to be here with two incredible women artists from two different generations in dialogue with each other.
As usual, I would like to thank the curators Maria Alicata and Paola Ugolini for their extraordinary work and to @annepasternak for making this possible.
Suzanne Santoro was born in Brooklyn and she came to Rome in the mid-1960s, following Mark Rothko and his family and then settled there permanently in 1971, completely fascinated by the Eternal City and Mediterranean culture.
Between the 1960s and 1970s, her artistic production was intertwined with political activism, and Suzanne’s work was initially linked to the demands of the Roman feminist group Rivolta Femminile, founded in July 1970 by art critic and philosopher Carla Lonzi, artist Carla Accardi and political journalist Elvira Banotti. Suzanne Santoro’s artistic production translates into visual language the historical and personal need to respond to the ideological automatisms of contemporary narratives, with which the subordinate position of female subjectivity is established and maintained.
I am happy to return to Brooklyn to celebrate this incredible artist whose life has been devoted to feminism and feminist art.
Dior’s Fall Winter 2024 show at the @BrooklynMuseum is dedicated to Suzanne, paying homage to her work.
Slide 1:Photo Pietro Consagra. Rome, Pietro Consagra Studio, meeting of Rivolta Femminile, from the right Suzanne Santoro, Carla Lonzi, Carla Accardi, Marta Lonzi, 1971. On background Consagra sculpture: “Giardino bianco”, painted iron, 1966. Courtesy Archivio Pietro Consagra Milan.
Slide 2: From the right: Eva Menzio, Suzanne Santoro, and Edith Schloss at the house of Eva Menzio after the opening of the exhibition Un Quadro di Artemisia Gentileschi, Rome, 1976. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro and Archivia.
Suzanne Santoro was born in Brooklyn and she came to Rome in the mid-1960s, following Mark Rothko and his family and then settled there permanently in 1971, completely fascinated by the Eternal City and Mediterranean culture.
Between the 1960s and 1970s, her artistic production was intertwined with political activism, and Suzanne’s work was initially linked to the demands of the Roman feminist group Rivolta Femminile, founded in July 1970 by art critic and philosopher Carla Lonzi, artist Carla Accardi and political journalist Elvira Banotti. Suzanne Santoro’s artistic production translates into visual language the historical and personal need to respond to the ideological automatisms of contemporary narratives, with which the subordinate position of female subjectivity is established and maintained.
I am happy to return to Brooklyn to celebrate this incredible artist whose life has been devoted to feminism and feminist art.
Dior’s Fall Winter 2024 show at the @BrooklynMuseum is dedicated to Suzanne, paying homage to her work.
Slide 1:Photo Pietro Consagra. Rome, Pietro Consagra Studio, meeting of Rivolta Femminile, from the right Suzanne Santoro, Carla Lonzi, Carla Accardi, Marta Lonzi, 1971. On background Consagra sculpture: “Giardino bianco”, painted iron, 1966. Courtesy Archivio Pietro Consagra Milan.
Slide 2: From the right: Eva Menzio, Suzanne Santoro, and Edith Schloss at the house of Eva Menzio after the opening of the exhibition Un Quadro di Artemisia Gentileschi, Rome, 1976. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro and Archivia.
A thousand thanks to @vitt_pl and his wonderful photos, which have captured the emotions of these beautiful, important days for me!
Suzanne Santoro’s series Black Mirrors stems from her interest in ancient art and archaeological treasures – being particularly influenced by Etruscan and Roman-era painting and sculpture – as well as her experience of self-awareness practiced in the Rivolta Femminile group. An initial inspiration for these works also came from the mirrors in the Doria Pamphilji Gallery and the Palazzo Colonna in Rome, which displayed characteristically darkened surfaces, weathered over time. The photographs in her series are therefore portraits of statues and artefacts, characterised by a melancholic haze and mysterious darkness which result from her intervention in the photographic process. These have been glued onto wooden panels and covered with polished transparent polyester resin, giving the photographs a finish which exempts them from the use of glass or frames, thus transcending the stereotypes and standards of the art world.
Slide 1: Suzanne Santoro with a Black Mirrors Series. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro
Slide 2: Hermaphrodite, 1976, photography on wood, polished polyester resin, 2 elements, 40X30 cm each. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro.
Suzanne Santoro’s series Black Mirrors stems from her interest in ancient art and archaeological treasures – being particularly influenced by Etruscan and Roman-era painting and sculpture – as well as her experience of self-awareness practiced in the Rivolta Femminile group. An initial inspiration for these works also came from the mirrors in the Doria Pamphilji Gallery and the Palazzo Colonna in Rome, which displayed characteristically darkened surfaces, weathered over time. The photographs in her series are therefore portraits of statues and artefacts, characterised by a melancholic haze and mysterious darkness which result from her intervention in the photographic process. These have been glued onto wooden panels and covered with polished transparent polyester resin, giving the photographs a finish which exempts them from the use of glass or frames, thus transcending the stereotypes and standards of the art world.
Slide 1: Suzanne Santoro with a Black Mirrors Series. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro
Slide 2: Hermaphrodite, 1976, photography on wood, polished polyester resin, 2 elements, 40X30 cm each. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro.
A very special New York moment and a dream come true! Last night’s @dior show at the @brooklynmuseum was one to remember and a memory I will cherish forever! Thank you @wwd for capturing this pre-show moment ahead of the big night.
Thank you @thealexbadia and @elmercer it was a pleasure to talk to you.
Suzanne Santoro’s artistic research should be placed within a broader context, that of the early 1970s international feminism, and the particular direction it took in Italy, where one of its main themes was sexuality.
She published her own work in 1974 under the name “Rivolta Femminile” Per una Espressione Nuova (Towards New Expression), a collection of images that aimed to restore the visibility of the female morphology iconography in artistic representations. From the very first publication, the book provoked mixed reactions. After 50 years, we are honoured to be able to re-issue together with Suzanne a revised edition of that book and continue the debate it had created.
In occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum, Suzanne Santoro has presented a site specific installation titled “I Thought Art Was for Women”, the readaptation of an artwork first seen in Rome in 1976. This work is a slideshow of photographs taken by the artist during her early years in Rome. It is connected to the research she began in the late 1960s on the origins of Western painting and sculpture through a series of images ranging from stains on Rome’s walls to classical Roman sculptures, understood as traces and evidence of the passage of time. Santoro’s research is an attempt to trace the archaic origin of images and interpretations of the female figure in order to provide a new perspective. The second installation features a series of recent drawings and Black Mirrors taken from the artist’s collection. I am very happy to give guests and museum visitors the opportunity to view the artist’s works in real life at the entrance of the showspace.
Images from “I Thought Art Was for Women”, 1976-2024, video projection, variable dimension. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro
In occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum, Suzanne Santoro has presented a site specific installation titled “I Thought Art Was for Women”, the readaptation of an artwork first seen in Rome in 1976. This work is a slideshow of photographs taken by the artist during her early years in Rome. It is connected to the research she began in the late 1960s on the origins of Western painting and sculpture through a series of images ranging from stains on Rome’s walls to classical Roman sculptures, understood as traces and evidence of the passage of time. Santoro’s research is an attempt to trace the archaic origin of images and interpretations of the female figure in order to provide a new perspective. The second installation features a series of recent drawings and Black Mirrors taken from the artist’s collection. I am very happy to give guests and museum visitors the opportunity to view the artist’s works in real life at the entrance of the showspace.
Images from “I Thought Art Was for Women”, 1976-2024, video projection, variable dimension. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro
In occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum, Suzanne Santoro has presented a site specific installation titled “I Thought Art Was for Women”, the readaptation of an artwork first seen in Rome in 1976. This work is a slideshow of photographs taken by the artist during her early years in Rome. It is connected to the research she began in the late 1960s on the origins of Western painting and sculpture through a series of images ranging from stains on Rome’s walls to classical Roman sculptures, understood as traces and evidence of the passage of time. Santoro’s research is an attempt to trace the archaic origin of images and interpretations of the female figure in order to provide a new perspective. The second installation features a series of recent drawings and Black Mirrors taken from the artist’s collection. I am very happy to give guests and museum visitors the opportunity to view the artist’s works in real life at the entrance of the showspace.
Images from “I Thought Art Was for Women”, 1976-2024, video projection, variable dimension. Courtesy Suzanne Santoro
![Maria Grazia Chiuri Instagram - Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form. Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait. The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women. “Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. [...] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023 Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. . Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato](https://www.gethucinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MariaGraziaChiuri10-zt1m9F960.jpg)
![Maria Grazia Chiuri Instagram - Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form. Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait. The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women. “Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. [...] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023 Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. . Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato](https://www.gethucinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MariaGraziaChiuri11-aQTvrc7379.jpg)
![Maria Grazia Chiuri Instagram - Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form. Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait. The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women. “Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. [...] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023 Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. . Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato](https://www.gethucinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MariaGraziaChiuri12-4y0dkR8695.jpg)
![Maria Grazia Chiuri Instagram - Claire Fontaine’s installation in occasion of the @Dior Fall Winter 2024 show held at the @BrooklynMuseum features colourful suspended neon lights that echo the triangle hand gesture of 1970s feminist demonstrations, a homage to Santoro’s work on the female body and female form. Each neon depicts the hands of several people involved in the project, a sort of collective portrait. The hands raised in a triangle to form a vagina appeared in squares in the 1970s and its story is told in the fantastic book Il Gesto Femminista, edited by Ilaria Bussoni and Raffaella Perna, in which its origins and history are traced with archive images and contributions from sociologists, philosophers, art historians, photographers and film directors, all women. “Hands spread like wings to recall the women’s revolt when their hands were raised to form a rhombus, materialising the vagina. [...] To have brought the vagina out in the open, being as desired as unknown, was an act of rare visual violence, because to materialise it, to duplicate it with our fingers, was also a way of exorcising it, of freeing ourselves from its slavery, of freeing a secret from the darkness that surrounds us.” Claire Fontaine Slide 1 Claire Fontaine, Double (F), 2023 Slide 2: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. Slide 3: Photo: Paola Agosti. Roma, aprile 1977. . Slide 4: Photo: Agnese De Donato](https://www.gethucinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MariaGraziaChiuri13-mqPTt56552.jpg)
