Claire Fontaine at Longtang
Soloshow «Too Late To Read», October 6 until December 1, 2019
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Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
A familiar looking apple-shaped light-box without the bite greets the visitors of Too Late to Read, an exhibition scattered around different spaces of the cooperative. Claire Fontaine’s sculpture installed on the roof of Longtang evokes the hidden moral aspect of logos, a possible forgiveness for the original sin, and the ambiguity of omnipresent technology that promises emancipation while condemning the loss of privacy and freedom.
Inside Longtang, an installation entitled Newsfloor creates a verbal and visual interference by covering the gallery floor with the broadsheet pages of recent copies of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper. The intervention evokes an unfinished space undergoing renovation. Claire Fontaine's gesture also refers to the crisis of printed media and the declining freedom of expression that is often taken for granted.
Seven Text Pile sculptures offer visitors multiple copies of texts written by the artist at different moments in time. The sides of the tall paper-stacks are paintings that progressively disappear as the pages are taken away to be read. Some quotations from Claire Fontaine’s writings have been given a second life, pasted on walls out of their original context, surprising passers-by.
The title of the exhibition, Too Late To Read, quotes Art & Language’s Too Dark To Read, which in turn quoted the pun by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is probably a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read”. The double meaning of ‘outside’ creating the joke is removed by Art & Language, making the sentence abstractly melancholic. Nevertheless, if it is too dark, it will get light again, whereas in Claire Fontaine’s case ‘too late’ might be irreversible, and hope seems to have been taken away from the horizon.
The expression might refer to our obstinate ignorance of whistleblowers, our skepticism towards bad news, and our comfortable apocalyptic sense that everything is doomed, with no possibility for us to act. – Claire Fontaine
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
Exhibition View Claire Fontaine Soloshow «Too Late To Read» at Longtang, Zurich, Oerlikon, 2019 / Photo: Stefan Burger / Courtesy: the artist and Longtang
