Fontana’s performance is glittered with exaggerations, her body being covered in bulging breast-like appendages filled with nutritious fluid that bounce, jiggle and leak as she dances on stage. She presents herself overly pregnant with femininity and exploding with masculinity - subverting the tenderness and nurture of the female anatomy to use it as a weapon, a phallic pistol against the pre-established notions of gender and sexuality.
“My body says one thing, my mind something else - sometimes they agree and sometimes they don’t” - Fontana’s nature welcomes the paradox of the dichotomy, to her, opposites can co-exist side by side without clashing, but rather by creating a multiplicity of feelings, experiences and states through which she exposes the “complex experience of my body and my role in society, which is full of contradictions that exist both inside and outside of me.”
fontana
the multi-breasted goddess of motherly love, femme-fontaine
“... if you’re wondering who Fontana is, you might be asking yourself the wrong question. Fontana, is - and is not. She can be playful yet serious. Dominant and passive. Feminine yet masculine. Strong and gentle. A goddess and a mortal. A madonna but also a whore. Perhaps, one could say Fontana is representative of the dialectical discourse between the seemingly opposing notions of sex, gender, expected behaviour, motherhood and power. What Fontana isn’t, is a preacher, a teacher, a mother, a missionary on the road to convert all the ‘non-believers’ with her motherly sinuous charm - in fact, she’s not here to give any answers at all, “her main role is to help raise questions” not answer them. If Fontana appears paradoxical, that’s because she is.”
GUIDO CASTAGNOLLI'S DOCUMENTARY PORTRAIT OF FONTANA:
Fontana creates “whacky associations to show her breasts as more powerful than penises could ever be, having 50 ejaculating devices instead of one”, and in a world where being ‘gifted’ with an ejaculating penis still means being treated and recognised as somewhat superior, Fontana playfully yet sternly reminds us of the power all females possess. Power, is not about being born in a certain sex nor is it about possessing the physical requirement of having a penis. Power, is about confidence, strength and using one’s sexuality to create art and start a discourse not only with others but amongst ourselves too.
