Anita Chari's 'A User’s Manual to Claire Fontaine' explores the collective's readymade art and political impact

Anita Chari, art critic and scholar, has published 'A User’s Manual to Claire Fontaine' with Lenz Press, a book born from over a decade of conversations with the artist collective and engagement with their exhibitions. Chari first encountered Claire Fontaine in 2011 at Metro Pictures in New York, during Occupy Wall Street, and was struck by the work 'America (burnt/unburnt)'. The book is structured as a dialogic encounter, influenced by Carla Lonzi's 'Autoritratto', and aims to dismantle the subject-object paradigm in knowledge creation. Chari, who also practices somatic therapy, brings a unique perspective on embodiment and perception of domination. Claire Fontaine, a 'readymade' artist, challenges the art market by declaring art as a common practice, not a fetishized commodity. Their work has gained international visibility through collaborations with Dior and Chiara Ferragni, and their series 'Stranieri Ovunque' provided the title for the 2024 Venice Biennale. At the Biennale, Claire Fontaine contributed to the Holy See Pavilion inside a women's prison. Chari's book explores themes of 'affective conceptualism', reproduction over production, and the artist's engagement with Italian feminism and authoritarianism. Chari is currently working on a novel about an Indo-American immigrant family and a project on somatic work in US prisons, as well as researching Arthur Jafa.