MICTLÁN JOAN FONTCUBERTA
06/03/2020 | 11/01/2021
AN ESSAY IN PHOTOGRAPHIC HAUNTOLOGY
In May 2019 Joan Fontcuberta visited various photographic archives in Mexico to locate and re-photograph fragments of deteriorated photographs, photographs in a traumatic state.
This work was part of the Trauma project, begun years earlier as an investigation into the metabolism of images, focusing on the collection of sick photographs, groaning photographs, photographs that suffer from some kind of disorder that disturbs their documentary condition and disables them from continuing to "inhabit" the archive.
With wild hubris, we humans used to boast of using the camera to defeat time and encapsulate history. But if photography was born as a memory device, what happens when it becomes amnesic? At that moment the image becomes a ghost.
Trauma is both a farewell and a tribute to the ruins of the photographic. But just as magueys only produce the blossom before they die, so many photographs are only in their last instances capable of offering us their most terrible beauty.
In this beautiful, tragic and sombre Mexican suite, glimmers of the country's history are still visible: the Revolution, dramatic milestones, public personalities, social and family life... The collection of these documents ranges from portraits of Villa and Zapata and executions to weddings and christenings and identity photos, in a mosaic of situations and genres that would poetically evoke the ancestral cosmology of the Mictlán.
MICTLÁN
It is an exhibition and a photobook published in a special limited edition by INFRAMUNDO, a publishing project of Hydra, by Ramon Pez and Ana Casas Broda, with the collaboration of Ricardo García Caballero. Find out more about the photobook here.
Exhibition coordinator: Gabriela González Reyes Assembly: Sexto Círculo Taller Rocío Chávez Plascencia/Valentín Castelán.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for the loan of materials for the exhibition to: Acevedo-Mansour Collection, Fernando Osorio Alarcón Studio Collection, Fototeca Pedro Guerra de la Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas de la UADY.Special thanks to the archives where the photographs for this book and exhibition were taken: Fototeca Nacional Pachuca, Mérida Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Fundación Televisa, MAF CDMX. All images were taken with a Sony Alpha R7 IV camera, 90m lens.
MICTLÁN
“MICTLÁN is an experimental jewel that crystallises in an original artist's book, printed in a signed edition limited to 100 copies. It is presented in an amate case and the body consists of nine sheets, each one with a different type of paper: kraft, butter, revolution, education, bond, estraza, grey lead, among others. The graphic design has been done by Ramon Pez, who has excelled in one of his most brilliant achievements".
Joan Fontcuberta.
MICTLÁN PRE-SALE
We also offer you to join our new pre-sale platform for the offset printing of this photobook in a larger print run and at a more accessible price. Join us by buying a copy in this new collaborative initiative of Hydra.
JOAN FONTCUBERTASPAIN
(Barcelona, 1955) is an artist, essayist, teacher and exhibition curator. His creative work deals with the conflicts between nature, technology, photography and truth, and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and monographic publications over four decades. His work has been shown in institutions such as the MoMA, New York (1988); the Musée Cantini, Marseille (1990); the Art Institute, Chicago (1990); the IVAM, Valencia (1992); the MNAC, Barcelona (1999); the MUA, Alicante (2001); the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2001); and ARTIUM, Vitoria (2003).
Recent solo exhibitions include Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg (2013); Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2014); Science Museum, London (2014); Cosmocaixa, Barcelona (2015); Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt (2015); Canal de Isabel II, Madrid (2015); Museo de la Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona (2016); DA2, Salamanca (2016); Galeria Àngels Barcelona (2016); Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá (2016); Palazzo Boncompagni / Biennale di Fotografia e Industria, Fundazioni Mast, Bologna (2017).
Works by him can be found in collections such as MoMA (NY), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), San Francisco MoMA, National Gallery of Art (Ottawa), Folkwang Museum (Essen), Musée National d'Art Contemporain - Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), MEP (Paris), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), MACBA (Barcelona) and MNCARS (Madrid).
As a lecturer he has been a visiting professor at various international institutions such as Harvard University and Le Fresnoy. Centre National des Arts Contemporains, France.
He has published several books on subjects related to the history, aesthetics and pedagogy of photography: El beso de Judas. Fotografía y Verdad (Ed. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1997); La cámara de Pandora. La fotografía después de la fotografía (Ed. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2010); and La furia de las imágenes. He has been the artistic director of biennials such as the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles (the most important photography festival in the world) and the Mois de la Photographie in Montreal.
In 2013 Joan Fontcuberta was awarded the Hasselblad Foundation International Award. In Spain he has received the National Photography Prize (1998) and the National Essay Prize (2011). In 2012 he received the National Prize for Culture and Visual Arts from the Catalan government, in 2015 the Culture Prize (Photography) from the Community of Madrid, and in 2016 the City of Barcelona Prize in Humanities.
