A Unique Creative Dialogue
Born in Brooklyn in 1946, Suzanne Santoro – whose work was initially connected to the work of feminist group Rivolta Femminile* – reconceived, readapting it to the spaces of the Brooklyn Museum, an installation created in Rome in 1976 in the Cooperativa Beato Angelico gallery, which was founded and directed by eleven women artists, writers and art critics with the aim of promoting the world and work of female artists.
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The installation also includes a selection of works from the Black Mirrors and drawings from the artist’s most recent production. The Black Mirrors are black-and-white photographs shot in the 1970s, applied to wooden panels and covered with a transparent resin polished to instill a melancholy, mysterious atmosphere.
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Echoing this commitment, Claire Fontaine’s large-scale installation for the Dior Fall 2024 show resonates with the work of Suzanne Santoro, in particular with Per una espressione nuova (Towards new Expression). Claire Fontaine is a "collective artist" a feminist conceptual project launched in Paris in 2004 by the duo Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill.
On the second floor of the museum, in the rotunda, a series of neon lights in different colors reproduce female hands, each different from the next, whose fingers join to form a diamond. This gesture originated during the feminist protests of the second half of the ‘70s and early ‘80s. A spontaneous gesture, a strong emblem of women’s empowerment, it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.
“Hands suspended like wings to recall women’s revolt when their hands rose to form a diamond shape. From this vision, for which there is no unequivocal explanation or exhaustive interpretation, we can, however, explore the silence.” Claire Fontaine creates a web of images that retrace the biological life of women and things.
The models walk on a floor conceived by the collective, inspired by the tiles used in the outdoor courtyards of Palermo’s ancient houses, a reference to Mediterranean sensuality and the collective’s adopted city, a visual quotation that pays homage to the sculptural and pictorial skills of Sicilian ceramists.
*Founded in 1970 by art critic and philosopher Carla Lonzi, artist Carla Accardi and political journalist Elvira Banotti.
© Paul Vu © Suzanne Santoro © Claire Fontaine
The Making-Of
© Melinda Triana