Joan Fontcuberta

JOAN FONTCUBERTA (Barcelona, 1955).
"Orogenesis: Dalí (Hallucinogenic)", 2003.
Chromogenic print on aluminum, copy 1/3.
Signed, dated and serialized on the back.
Attached is the photograph of Dalí's work on which the artist is based.
Work published in the catalog of the exhibition "Joan Fontcuberta" held at Galería Senda, Barcelona.
Measurements: 17 x 21 cm (photograph of Dalí); 40 x 60 cm (photograph).

In this series by Joan Fontcuberta, the starting point are Dalí's paintings that are subjected to computer programs for translating topographical plans into three-dimensional images. Originally, this kind of programs had a military use. The result of these orogenesis are a sort of hybrid landscapes between the pictorial-photographic tradition and computer science, between the natural and the artificial, between the old and the new. Fontcuberta's work involves both the crisis of the photographic technique and the crisis of the archive, also affecting how the refinement of these computer programs threaten the iconic status of photography as a literal transcription of reality.

Artist, teacher, essayist, critic and art promoter specialized in photography, Joan Fontcuberta has developed a successful career, which has earned him awards such as the David Octavius Hill by the Fotografisches Akademie GDL of Germany (1988), the appointment of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture in France (1994), and the National Prize of Photography, awarded by the Ministry of Culture of Spain (1998). A graduate in Information Sciences, Fontcuberta is a professor of Audiovisual Communication Studies at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA). Between 1985 and 2001, Fontcuberta's work has been exhibited in more than thirty museums and art galleries in Europe, North America and Japan, notably the MoMA in New York, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the IVAM in Valencia, the Parco Gallery in Tokyo, the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona, the Redpath in Montreal, the Musée de l'Élysée in Lausanne, the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao and many others. He is currently represented in numerous private collections and also in many public collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Metropolitan and MoMA in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, the IVAM in Valencia and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires.