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Joan Fontcuberta

Chiostri di San Domenico - Sala delle Carrozze
30 April - 7 June 2009
curated by Elio Grazioli

  

GOOGLEGRAMMI

“In Googlegramas Fontcuberta disassembles, or deconstructs, the supposed global, homogeneous nature of photographic and media image in general. Each picture is not a unique picture, but the sum of its parts, a construction, a structure made from a considerable series of different images that the computer programme integrates in a research norm. The incessant repetition and variation of images in the mass media, of which we are the inevitable, more or less passive consumers, is what finally consolidate the illusion of unity and “unquestionability”, that is the backbone of the authoritarian nature of the representation of today’s world. So that this form of representation can be perpetuated, and the entertainment society can go on holding up a veil of illusion and separating us from the critical access to knowledge, public images must not be questioned. And so, when Fontcuberta shows us that they are a construction, he opens a path for critical thought to wonder about the amount of truth in them, to perceive how much representation is as a whole, a simulacrum”. from “Qué hay en un fragmento”, by José Jiménez, in Datascapes, Québec, 2007 (translation by Giovanna Del Bello)

BIOGRAPHY

Joan Fontcuberta was born in Barcelona in 1955. He worked intensively in the world of photography, as an artist, teacher, critic and exhibition curator. He has taught in many centres and universities in Europe and the United States, collaborating also with many specialist magazines in the art and image world. In 1980 he founded the magazine "Photovision", of which he is editor-in-chief. He is currently professor of Audiovisual Communication at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He has also published many works about the history of photography, aesthetics and teaching.
He has promoted and founded many events dedicated to the photographic culture, including “The Photographic Spring” (Barcelona, since 1982). In 1996 he was the artistic director of the Rencontres Internationales in Arles. He has held numerous exhibitions at famous museums, including The George Eastman House (Rochester, 1985), Folkwang Museum (Essen, 1987), Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1988), The Photographer's Gallery (London, 1988), IVAM (Valencia, 1992), Museo de Bellas Artes (Bilbao, 1995), Elysée Museum (Lausanne, 1999), Australian Centre for Photography (Sidney, 2007), Musée-Chateau (Annecy, 2008), Palau de la Virreina (Barcelona, 2008). In 2001 the ‘Palazzo delle Esposizioni’ in Rome dedicated a large retrospective to him entitled Scherzi della natura, and in 2002 the exhibition moved to the Italian Photography Foundation in Turin. His works are on show in important international centres including the Georges Pompidou Centre (Paris), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Art Institute (Chicago), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), the Folkwang Museum (Essen), the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Hamburg), IVAM (Valenzia), the MACBA (Barcelona), the MNCARS (Madrid), and the Museo de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires).

PHOTOGALLERY

Fontcuberta

J. Fontcuberta, Googlegramma: Greenpeace, 2006 J. Fontcuberta, Googlegramma: Niagara, 2007 J. Fontcuberta, Googlegramma: The Wall, 2006

INFORMATION

Info
Chiostri di San Domenico
via Dante Alighieri 11 - Reggio Emilia
tel. 0522 451152 - 456249

Hours
Opening 30 April at 18.00
From 1 to 3 May from 10.00 to 23.00
From 5 May to 7 June: from Tuesdays to Fridays from 18.00 to 23.00; Saturdays, Sundays and festivals from 10.00 to 23.00

MEETING WITH THE ARTIST

venerdì 1 maggio 2009, ore 10.00 - piazza Casotti
Il tempo dell’immagine.
Elio Grazioli presenta Balthasar Burkhard e Joan Fontcuberta