Founded in 2004

Taking her name from a brand of French notebooks, Claire Fontaine is also a fictional persona created as part of a two-artist collaboration. Herself a readymade, Claire Fontaine’s very existence is a form of neo-appropriation that questions, in her own words, “the crisis of singularity in contemporary art.” Claire Fontaine is currently working with les Editions La Fabrique, Paris, to prepare a book about the readymade artist and the idea of the “human strike,” or aggressive silences and the halting of human production, a concept drawn from 1970s Italian feminism. Solo exhibitions include Fondation d'Enterprise Ricard, Paris (2007); Télephone Arabe Air de Paris, Paris (2007); Footnotes on the State of Exception Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2007); Siamo tutti singolarità qualunque Museion Bolzano, Italy (2006); Couvrir Les Feux Zoo Galerie, Nantes, France (2006); Foreigners Everywhere Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2005); Galerie Meerretich im Glaspavillion an der Volksbühne, Berlin (2005). Claire Fontaine has been featured in group exhibitions including Power Play Artpace, San Antonio, Texas (2007); Otra de Vaquieros National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City (2007); Anonym: In the future no one will be famous Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2006); The Look of Law University of California, Irvine (2006); Upping the Anti Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand (2006); Ça s'ouvre? Ça s'ouvre pas? Ateliers des Artistes de la Ville de Marseille, France (2006); Grey Flags Sculpture Center, New York (2006, catalogue); Mafia, or One Unopened Packet of Cigarettes Standard, Oslo (2006); and the 51st Venice Biennale (2005).