This isn't really a Travels with my Camera, as there isn't any photographs to go along with it. But I wanted to include it here as this was the very last thing we visited in Barcelona before heading home and I have to say, one of the best exhibitions I have seen in recent years.
Taking place in the La Virreina Centre De La Imatge on La Rambla, De Facto is as a career retrospective of the work of Joan Fontcuberta, an artist who's work explores the nature of truth through photography in a variety of ways.
The first exhibit concerns Soyuz 3 and the disappearance during space flight of Ivan Istochnikov and his dog Klocka. Detailed is Ivan's subsequent removal from official photographs, in much the same fashion as Valentin Bondarenko and Grigori Nelyubov. Adding to the believability of the tale is that the space is laid out just like a museum exhibition, complete with model rockets and USSR uniforms and space suits. You can almost believe the truth of the story, and then you realise that it's Fontcuberta appearing in the photographs as Istochnikov and how comic it all is, with photographs of Ivan and Klocka (!) walking in space and the empty bottle of vodka with a message inside found floating in space.
The rest of the exhibition continues in a similar vein, with separate rooms devoted to each of Fontcuberta’s projects. Of particular note is the Karelia: Miracles & Co. room, which details his “expose” of a group of monks who teach disciples how to perform hoax miracles and features photographs of the bizare sights such as The Miracle of dolphin surfing and The Miracle of Cephalopodization. I also enjoyed the evocative text used to describe the work, with the text for Frottograms using such terms as "like the face of Satan furrowed with the scars of light".
I thoroughly enjoyed De Facto and would have loved to have spent some more time exploring the many exhibits. For a detailed summary of Fontcuberta's career, there's his wiki entry and there's some more info on the exhibition here. The show opened on 6th November 2008 and runs until February 6th so if you're interested, you'd better get your skates on.
Taking place in the La Virreina Centre De La Imatge on La Rambla, De Facto is as a career retrospective of the work of Joan Fontcuberta, an artist who's work explores the nature of truth through photography in a variety of ways.
The first exhibit concerns Soyuz 3 and the disappearance during space flight of Ivan Istochnikov and his dog Klocka. Detailed is Ivan's subsequent removal from official photographs, in much the same fashion as Valentin Bondarenko and Grigori Nelyubov. Adding to the believability of the tale is that the space is laid out just like a museum exhibition, complete with model rockets and USSR uniforms and space suits. You can almost believe the truth of the story, and then you realise that it's Fontcuberta appearing in the photographs as Istochnikov and how comic it all is, with photographs of Ivan and Klocka (!) walking in space and the empty bottle of vodka with a message inside found floating in space.
The rest of the exhibition continues in a similar vein, with separate rooms devoted to each of Fontcuberta’s projects. Of particular note is the Karelia: Miracles & Co. room, which details his “expose” of a group of monks who teach disciples how to perform hoax miracles and features photographs of the bizare sights such as The Miracle of dolphin surfing and The Miracle of Cephalopodization. I also enjoyed the evocative text used to describe the work, with the text for Frottograms using such terms as "like the face of Satan furrowed with the scars of light".
I thoroughly enjoyed De Facto and would have loved to have spent some more time exploring the many exhibits. For a detailed summary of Fontcuberta's career, there's his wiki entry and there's some more info on the exhibition here. The show opened on 6th November 2008 and runs until February 6th so if you're interested, you'd better get your skates on.
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