I think of Fontanesi as a sixteenth century illustrator who, when faced with the task of representing a whale, realizes not only must he depict something which he has never seen but something which bears no relation to that which swims, runs or flies the earth. And so, before the mysterious and the unknown, he must invent his own cetology using the tales and descriptions of the sailors. Fontanesi reconstructs reality based on a distant perception: he deforms, unites, compresses, cuts and enlarges the whole to give us the impression of a delirious world superimposed on our own. Just as a narwhal could be turned into a unicorn in the sixteenth century, our provincial cities under Fontanesi's lens are populated with magical creatures, mystical objects and monsters of legend. Above all, Fontanesi is the creation of a modern provincial folklore comprised of two-headed geriatrics, glasses of Aperol with feet sticking out, human bodies that sprout from human bodies, cars that—a cross between Munari and Goldberg—become both impossible and useless. — Matteo Contin.