Basic Info
Name: Joan Fontcuberta
Country of Origin: ES
Description
Joan Fontcuberta (born 24 February 1955)[1] is a conceptual artist whose best-known works, such as Fauna and Sputnik, examine the truthfulness of photography. In addition, he is a writer, editor, teacher, and curator.
Fontcuberta was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He received a degree in communications from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1977.[2][3] He worked in advertising in his early career, and his family had also worked in advertising.[4][5] From 1979 to 1986 he was a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona, after which he earned a living through his art.[6][7]
In 1980 he co-founded the Spanish/English visual arts journal PhotoVision, and he is still Editor in Chief.[5][6] Since 1993 Fontcuberta has been a professor of audiovisual communication at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.[3][6] Among other teaching appointments, he was visiting lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University in 2003.[6][8] Among other awards, he was named an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 1994.[2][6] His curatorial experience includes serving as the Artistic Director of the 1996 Rencontres d’Arles, an international photography festival.[2] He exhibited at Les Rencontres d’Arles, France, in 2005 and 2009.
One of his fingers is missing as a result, he said in a 2014 interview, to a home-made bomb blowing up in his hand. He says that the missing finger makes him a terrible photographer, although in 2013 he won the Hasselblad International Award in Photography.[9]
