Lucie Fontaine is an art employer who lives and works in Colmar, France. Describing herself as an “art employer,” Lucie Fontaine avoids harnessing her practice to a specific figure of the art field, preferring to cultivate a modus operandi driven solely by her relationship with two* employees, a concept of self-generated labor similar to the Master-Slave dialectic presented by Hegel is his masterpiece, Phenomenology of Spirit. Her two* art employees like to define her as the Jamie Lynn Spears of contemporary art: “pregnant and in search of easy success.” Thus, Lucie Fontaine incarnates the following three assumptions: 1) the anti-hierarchical perception of the art field, where artists, curators, gallerists, collectors, editors and critics are all considered “players” in the same game; 2) the theory of expanded practice, in which the artist is not only considered the “creator” of an artwork, but also a cultural operator able to write, manage galleries, curate, collect, etc.; 3) the consideration of the entire discourse around the artwork: conception / creation / production / presentation / distribution / communication / promotion. In 2007, Lucie Fontaine opened a space in Milan, which was intended as a meeting place for the artistic community. Deliberately collaborating only with Italian artists, Lucie Fontaine and her entourage organized unconventional projects with Italian artists Valerio Carrubba, Alessandro Roma, Valerio Rocco Orlando and Mauro Vignando, as well as first time solo shows by Cleo Fariselli, Enza Galantini and Riccardo Beretta. In 2008, T293 gallery in Naples hosted Lucie Fontaine’s first solo show. In 2009, she exhibited in Murcia, Spain (with Fruit and Flower Deli) and at “No Soul For Sale” at X-initiative, New York. During Performa09 in New York, she produced the last iteration of Performat, her ongoing collaboration with Italian artist and filmmaker Marcella Vanzo with the special participation of Irish contemporary music composer Jennifer Walshe. She has a forthcoming solo exhibition at The Promenade Gallery in Vlore, Albania in 2010. Lucie Fontaine is currently working on a book titled The Talismans and will be the editor of the catalogue raisonné of Swedish painter Ylva Ogland.

*L’Anti-Oedipe was written by the two of us, and since each of us was several, we were already quite a crowd.” Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari.