Emi Fontana

Amelia "Emi" Fontana (b. Milan, 1961) is a cultural producer, art curator and writer based in Los Angeles.

Fontana studied art history at the University La Sapienza in Rome, with a focus on the Venetian Renaissance. Her coming of age happened in the late seventies when Italy was living a unique season of creativity and was a laboratory of new ideas and talents. She became part of circles of artists, musicians and writers. She was especially close to the group of writers and cartoonists involved with the publication of several independent magazines, including Il Male, Cannibale, and Frigidaire. As well as "off theater" avantgard experiences like the circle of the Beat 72 . In these years the young Emi Fontana met the well known cultural attaché for the city of Rome, Renato Nicolini. His ideas of bringing culture in to the streets trespassing boundaries of high and low that culminated with the Estate Romana (Roman Summer), became really influential for her later activity as cultural producer.

In the late 1980s, after few years spent with a daily job in advertising companies, Fontana became actively involved in contemporary art as an independent curator for galleries and public institutions. With Laura Ruggeri and Gianni Romano she initiated the first archive of women artists working in Italy, which is now housed at DOCVA (Documentation Centre for Visual Arts) in Milan. In 1991 she organized "An English View" at the British Academy in Rome, the first show in Italy of YBA (Young British Art).

In 1992, Fontana opened the Emi Fontana Gallery in Milan, where she worked with artists such as Adrian Piper, Alessandra Spranzi, Arpiani & Pagliarini, Cosima von Bonin, Diana Thater,Gillian Wearing,John Waters, Ketty La Rocca, Liam Gillick, Liliana Moro, Lovett & Codagnone, Luca Buvoli,, Mark Dion, Michael Smith, Mike Kelley,Monica Bonvicini, Olafur Eliasson,Renée Green, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Sam Durant. The gallery officially closed in 2009.

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