The archive is a bastion of memory and its power is protected in fortresses where documents are accumulated in an irregular way.

It is the guardians of these places who have the authority to preserve access to information.

Managing that access means controlling the key to knowledge and storytelling. That is why the archive becomes a recurrent place for contemporary artistic creation.

There are archives governed by opacity and intolerance, which no doubt express the panic of losing the monopoly on history. Censorship is their shield, to which the artist responds like a hacker by filtering and disseminating these hijacked voices.

Fortunately, however, there are also archives that are the result of a desire for freedom, transparency and democracy. When the archive is open to free interpretation, it is like sending our intelligence to a new Ali Baba cave.

He is an artist, teacher, essayist, critic and promoter of Spanish art specialized in photography. He was awarded the David Octavious Hill Prize by the Fotografisches Akademie GDL of Germany in 1988, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture in France in 1994, the Premio Nacional de Fotografía by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1998 and the Premio Nacional de Ensayo in 2011.

As a promoter of events related to the art of photography, he organised the Jornadas Catalanas de Fotografía in 1979, and in 1982, he helped set up the Primavera Fotográfica de Barcelona.

In 1984, he was the curator of the exhibition Idas and Chaos. Vanguardias fotográficas en España 1920-1945, exhibited at the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid and the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, and later Creación Fotográfica en España 1968-88 exhibited at the Cantini Museum in Marseille and the Centro de Arte Santa Mónica in Barcelona.

In 1996 he was appointed artistic director of the International Festival of Photography in Arles.

In 1998 he won the Premio Nacional de Fotografía from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. In 2011 he won the Premio Nacional de Ensayo awarded by the Ministry of Culture for his work 'La cámara de Pandora'.

From 6 March 2020 the exhibition MICTLÁN will be on show in our gallery and the limited edition handmade photobook will be on display in our bookshop.

We invite you to visit us and buy Joan Fontcuberta's work or take a copy of the photobook.

"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 the responsibility of Ramon Pez, who has excelled in one of his most brilliant achievements". 

Joan Fontcuberta