Claudia Fontes: Reimagining History Through Fragility and Form

Art as a Space of Transformation

 

Fontes emerged as an artist during a time of social and political transition in Argentina, following the country's military dictatorship. These formative years deeply influenced her thinking and instilled in her a critical sensitivity to themes of trauma, displacement, and the role of storytelling in nation-building.

Although she began her career in painting, Fontes soon turned to sculpture and installation as her primary mediums. She sought forms that could embody tension — between strength and fragility, silence and expression. Clay, porcelain, and other delicate materials became central to her language, not only for their tactile qualities but also for their ability to capture impermanence and vulnerability.

 

A Poetics of the Subtle

 

Fontes’s work often revolves around the encounter — a moment frozen in time, where two forces (human and animal, child and adult, nature and culture) confront each other without resolution. Rather than offering explanations, she stages questions. Her sculptures rarely feel monumental in a traditional sense; instead, they command space with a quiet intensity, drawing the viewer in through absence as much as presence.

 

 

“A Horse Problem”: Myth and Power Reexamined

 

One of her most emblematic works is "A Horse Problem," a large-scale sculpture presented in the Argentine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017. The piece features a white horse, seemingly in mid-fall, surrounded by shattered earth and a young girl frozen in a moment of confrontation. The scene is arresting, ambiguous, and dreamlike — evoking both violence and grace.

Fontes described the work as a response to Argentina’s colonial legacy and the dominant narratives that have shaped its national identity. The horse, a powerful symbol in both European conquest and Argentine iconography, becomes destabilized — no longer heroic, but vulnerable, possibly even afraid. The girl, though small and still, holds a powerful presence, as if she were rewriting history with her gaze.

While the work was created for the Biennale, it transcends that context. It is not just a national statement, but a universal meditation on control, rupture, and possibility.

 

Living and Working Between Worlds

 

Since 2002, Claudia Fontes has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, though she remains deeply connected to Latin America’s artistic and political discourse. This physical and conceptual distance has allowed her to view her country from a new perspective — as both insider and outsider — and to explore the intersections of belonging and estrangement in her work.

Fontes has participated in numerous exhibitions and biennials across the globe, including São Paulo, Liverpool, and Havana. Her works are part of major international collections, and she has been involved in collaborative and socially engaged projects, particularly those related to memory and human rights in post-dictatorship Argentina.

 

An Artist of Silence and Substance

 

Claudia Fontes does not shout; her work whispers. And in that whisper lies an immense force. Her art resists categorization, unfolding slowly and demanding presence from its audience. Whether through a crumbling porcelain figure, a suspended narrative, or the frozen shock of a falling horse, she asks us to rethink the stories we have inherited — and to imagine new ones.