The seen and unseen world of Fontcuberta’s ‘Pareidolia’

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Joan Fontcuberta has achieved what many in contemporary photography aspire to: turn photography upside down. In other words, establish a reputation as a master craftsman who uses a traditional medium to challenge what we think we should see – but instead – are taken on a visual odyssey that combines meticulous technique with parody, historical critique and a challenge of what we understand to be “real.”

Born 1955 in Barcelona, Fontcuberta is first and foremost an artist who has managed in his career to transcend the categorization photographers are prone to. His work is part documentary, commercial, fine art, anthropological, but above all, visual anesthesia captured on a silver bromide gelatin prints.

In November, the Museum of Art of the Banco de la Repu?blica decided to anesthetize us with the launch of an exhibition titled ‘Pareidolia’ – a word that alludes to a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually exists.

Five of Fontcubertas most famous series – Herbarium, Fauna, Constelaciones, Sputnik and Milgros & Co. – are on display and reveal the diversity of subject matter in the mind of this Catalan photographer – from studying objects found, to botany, the ill-fated voyage of the Soyuz II, and “miracles” of levitating Finnish monks.

This cross-section of work may baffle visitors accustomed to pure documentary photography and where what we see is always assumed to be real, as the camera is inherently an object of “truth”. With Fontcuberta, however, “truth” is an extension of the imagination, the search to give meaning where actually, there is often a void. This void is best represented by space – as in the cosmos. Wanting to transcend the photographic plate this artist decided to create a truth/hoax exercise based on a mysterious disappearance of a Russian cosmonaut Ivan Istochnikov and his dog Kloka in 1968. It gets creepier. The story, a “hoax” and figment of Fontcuberta’s vivid imaginarium was painfully recreated with digital photo manipulation and a plethera of rare space mission ‘artifacts’. This never-happened expedition made its way to the National Museum of Catalan Art in Barcelona for a 1998 exhibition.

In Milagros & Co., photography enters more bizarre territory with levitating monks in a mysterious monastery in Karelia (Finland). This selenium-toned “photo-essay” explores the relationship of fiction and the “spirit” of photography. No sacred truth is spared with this essayist of seen and unseen worlds, and the truth we take for granted in front of the camera becomes clinical and dissected. Audiences will enjoy the act of seeing in ‘Pareidolia’ and a comprehensive show of an important visual artist, who like a magician has yet to reveal his next trick. The exhibition runs until February 27 and admission is free.

Museo de arte Banco de la Repu?blica.

Second Floor. Calle 11 No.4-41

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