Florilegium
Joan Fontcuberta

 20 MAR - 9 JUN'24
Tower Room
Header image: Florilegium, 2023
Commissioner: Museo Universidad de Navarra

Using Artificial Intelligence, Fontcuberta builds in 'Florilegium' a fabulous imaginary flora like the one that captivated the explorers of the 18th century in their travels.

Joan Fontcuberta is interested in nature photography in order to reach the nature of photography. With that purpose he has carried out numerous projects in which plants and vegetables have been protagonists, such as the series Herbarium ( 1982-85). Four decades later, he remakes this series and proposes new imaginary species. If in the first work he parodied the photographs of botanical specimens taken by Karl Blossfeldt, in Florilegium he replaces the collage of objects and conventional photography with new algorithmic visualization tools, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) mechanisms.

In another twist, the artist creates a series of landscapes with an emphasis on trees and bushes, flowers and fruits, like those that amazed the explorers who embarked on scientific expeditions throughout the eighteenth century. Only that Terra Incognita is no longer limited to geography, but can be expanded into the universe of new imaginaries, virtual life and the impressive hallucinatory capacity of the most advanced generative visualization technologies.

Thus, the artist establishes a dialogue with the exhibition A Promised Land. From the Age of Enlightenment to the birth of photography, which can be visited on floors 0 and -1 of the MUN. This exhibition develops the thesis that the scientific curiosity of the Enlightenment led to the need for graphic descriptions of nature as literal as possible, and this desire prefigured the photographic gaze. For his part, Fontcuberta offers a speculative proposal about the scientific Enlightenment of the future.

Florilegium takes its title from Lucretius' first century B.C. poem of the same name, a tribute to Epicurus, the philosopher who founded a school of thought on the outskirts of Athens and called it "The Garden". Unlike other academies, "The Garden" admitted women and slaves. In it, the Epicurean thinkers developed philosophical concepts such as that of πρoληψις (prolepsis), the praesumptiones, anticipations or anteceptions, which evoke what would be some model-images or general concepts of things, constituted by empirical experiences accumulated in our memory. 

This is exactly what happens in the supposedly photographic images presented at the MUN. This is an updated version of that school of thought and harmony with nature, in which we are all invited to reflect on the vicissitudes of our environment and our visual culture.

BIOGRAPHY

Joan Fontcuberta (Barcelona, 1955) is considered one of the most relevant photographers in Europe today and one of the most respected and recognized voices on the international scene. He is the only Spanish artist to be awarded the Hasselblad Foundation Prize (2013) -one of the most important photography prizes- in recognition "to one of the most inventive contemporary photographers, whose trajectory of constant research into the photographic medium spans four decades. His work is distinguished by an original and playful conceptual approach that explores photographic conventions, systems of representation and regimes of truth. Fontcuberta questions the concepts of science and fiction in interdisciplinary projects that go beyond the limits of the museum space".   

He was also distinguished in 1994 as Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, with the National Photography Award in 1998 and the National Essay Award in 2011. Apart from his artistic work, Fontcuberta has developed a multidisciplinary activity in the world of photography as a teacher, critic, historian and exhibition curator. In 1980 he co-founded the magazine Photovision, where he was editor-in-chief for two decades. He has published several books on subjects related to the history, aesthetics and pedagogy of photography.  

His creative work, which addresses the conflicts between nature, technology, photography and truth, has been the subject of solo exhibitions at MoMA, New York (1988); Musée Cantini, Marseille (1990); Art Institute of Chicago (1990); MNAC, Barcelona (1999); Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2001); Aperture Foundation, New York (2006); FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam (2010); and Casa de la Moneda, Bogota (2011), among many others. His works are in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), San Francisco MoMA, National Gallery of Art (Ottawa), Musée d'Art Contemporain- Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), MACBA (Barcelona) and the Museo de la Universidad de Navarra.   

► ROOM SHEET

RELATED ACTIVITIES

Masterclass with Joan Fontcuberta/ 20 MAR/ 19:00 H

With the support of: Ernesto Fernández Holmann and Marta Regina Fischer Fernández