Emi Fontana

Amelia "Emi" Fontana (born 1961 in Milan) 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. She came of age in the late seventies when Italy was experiencing a renaissance of creativity and was considered a laboratory of new ideas and talents. During this time Fontana was immersed in 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" avant-garde experiences like the circle of the Beat 72 . In these early years 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 influential for her later activity as cultural producer.