Claire Fontaine, the widely celebrated ready-made artist duo consisting of Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill, is having an extraordinary impact on the contemporary art world. Their recent group exhibition, “Show Less,” now opened at Mimosa House, London. The multifaceted works presented in this exhibition challenge viewers to confront the complexities of identity, injustice, and the violence inherent in daily life.
The name Claire Fontaine takes its cue from French national stationery brand Clairefontaine. This decision embodies the thoughtful pair’s belief that art can be both a medium and a message. Their work is a cacophony-considerate, complex array of objects, images and meanings that hang and drip, contort and expand, twist, pulse, shimmer and ooze with seemingly endless movement.
“Show Less” features one of the most visually powerful installations at its core. It has this kind of enormous, lit Venn diagram thing with the three overlapping circles that are bright blue, peach and yellow. These red and blue circles represent witnesses, perpetrators, and victims, embodying the exhibition’s architecture and exploration of structural injustice. Carnevale remarked on the theme, stating, “The show revolves around structural injustice and how we deal with that. You know, patriarchy is an injustice, but it’s an injustice for men too.”
One of the most provocative pieces on display is a series of lifesize replicas. These reproductions reproduce Gustave Courbet’s scandalous oil painting “L’Origine du Monde,” painted in 1866. In an unapologetic exploration of aesthetics, this artwork unapologetically flaunts female anatomy. It challenges its audience and encourages them to reflect on the cultural standards we set regarding sexuality and objectification.
Additionally, a neon sign reading “FATHERFUCKER” glows large and visible through the window of Mimosa House. This fiery proclamation amplifies the exhibition’s layered critique of gender roles and norms, illuminating the ever-present sexualization of marginalized bodies.
Fontaine’s extensive and provocative installations confront and confuse audiences. She created book jackets drawing attention to Palestine’s devastated ecology and visual activism in reaction to the events of October 7. The artist used a simple but profound reaction against the piece of disrupted packaging foam. It features a massive, blown-up photograph of a drawing secretly drawn and smuggled out of a Yemeni prison. This powerful artistic piece is a jarring reminder of the injustice done to people living in war-torn countries.
The theme of daily violence permeates Claire Fontaine’s work, as Carnevale explains: “It is about how do we deal with the violence of our daily life that is destroying every dignity, basically, for art, for making a symbolic action.” The exhibition really moves the public in a profound way. It pushes them to think deeply about their lived experiences and the collective hurt and trauma caused by societal violence.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of their work is Claire Fontaine’s use of light boxes with images of shattered phone screens. The cracks in these screens become integral to the images beneath them, symbolizing the fractures in communication and understanding in modern life.
Carnevale describes their artistic philosophy as one that embraces appropriation: “Our work gets picked up and appropriated. Not worrying about being original frees you up. And it gives you a whole host of available material to work with.” This method gives them the opportunity to fill their artwork with several layers of significance, turning reproductions into priceless critique of culture.
Thornhill adds a personal perspective on the creative process, stating, “You’re always kind of nervous about making the first mark, but then once you get into it, it decides itself. Painting is a kind of magical process.” This depiction captures perfectly the duo’s collaborative spirit and their shared ability to explore heavy, complicated themes through their art.
The artists have taken a bold stance on many issues and the exhibition is an exploration of their artistic voices as well as this space for social commentary. Carnevale notes that their work has been described as both adding value to copies and vandalizing them in a feminist context. This duality points to the push-and-pull between the classic models of art and their modern adaptations.