Isabelle Alfonsi is a graduate of Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and University College of London. In 2009, she created Marcelle Alix, a contemporary art gallery located in Belleville, which she co-directs with Cécilia Becanovic. Since 2014, she has been developing conferences on the lines of contemporary queer art, some of which have been performed in drag. Her book on this topic, Pour une esthétique de l'émancipation, was published by Éditions B42 in September 2019.
Far from rereading art history by anachronistically applying the term "queer" to it, used positively in militant circles since the late 1980s, Isabelle Alfonsi seeks to show how the writing of art history has undermined the importance of artists' political and emotional commitments and rendered the social significance of their works inoperative. By imagining new friendships between artists of the past, she brings out a feminist and queer lineage for contemporary art, the subject of her book Pour une esthétique de l'émancipation.
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