"Stranger Than Fiction": Joan Fontcuberta, Science Museum, London

Joan Fontcuberta (b 1955) is a Catalan photographer and artist, whose works straddle the boundary between photographic truth and fiction. This, his first major UK exhibition, features six of his best-known works spanning nearly 20 years. Each work is, in every sense, a fabrication: a more or less convincing lie. As such, the works explore issues such as the power of the apparently objective photograph as evidence and the balance between our spiritual wish to believe and our logic-driven scepticism.

On entering the Media Space gallery we are confronted with Fontcuberta’s best known work: “Fauna” (1987). Produced in collaboration with artist and writer Pere Formiguera (1952-2013), the work purports to document the archive of the life’s work of the mysterious late Professor Peter Ameisenhaufen, discovered by the artists in the basement of a B&B in northern Scotland. The archive features “zoological discoveries” made by Ameisenhaufen on his worldwide expeditions, which appear to be exceptions to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The “discoveries” include a monkey with wings and a unicorn horn, a snake with twelve legs and a two-legged hybrid of a fox and a turtle (Image). Not content with providing photographs, “taken in the field”, of these monstrosities, the artists include sketches, extracts from contemporary notebooks, stuffed animals, X-rays and even vocalisations of selected exhibits: indeed, everything one would expect from a display in the Natural History Museum, just up the road.

Image: Joan Fontcuberta

There is no doubt today that this work is a very elaborate hoax, but when it was exhibited in Barcelona in 1989 apparently 30% of university educated visitors aged 20-30 believed that some of these creatures could have existed. Knowing the history behind the project, I found reading the notes and looking at the photographs to be an amusing and enjoyable experience.

The genesis of “Fauna” is suggested by studying the earlier (1984) work: “Herbarium”. Here, Fontcuberta presents an array of photographs of “new plant discoveries” which are, in reality, composed of a mixture of plant matter and various man-made materials. Later works include “Constellations” (1993), a series of prints purporting to be night sky views of star constellations but which are actually made from the traces of insects, dust and dirt that gathered on photographic paper on the window of his car as he drove to and from work. “Orogenesis” (2002) features prints of entirely mythical, computer generated landscapes produced by using a program to convert map contours into three dimensional landscape images. The contours have in turn been generated by digitally scanning old photographs as well as paintings by artists such as Cezanne and Turner.

Fontcuberta returned to the subject of mythical beasts with “Sirens” (2000), a series of photographs apparently depicting fossilised evidence for “Hydropithecus Alpinus”, a mermaid-type creation with human features. He collaborated with a local museum to produce the “fossils” and place them at a location in the French Alps where, as far as I am aware, they can still be viewed today. For this work Fontcuberta assumed the role of Father Jean Fontana, the “discoverer” of the fossils, whose photograph appears alongside some of the exhibits. This hoax proved too much for some and produced an angry response, in particular from teachers who argued that “amending” the fossil record in this way would confuse their pupils. Perhaps in the light of this the final work on display, “Karelia, Miracles and Co” (2002) is a very funny photographic record of miracles such as walking on water and “dolphin surfing” performed by monks (who look very much like Fontcuberta himself) at a monastery in Karelia, the region of northern Europe that straddles Russia and Finland. Anybody who believes that these photographs are for real definitely needs their head examining!

Conclusions

Delving more deeply into the works on display it is possible to see various common themes, the most obvious being the use of the supposedly objective medium of photography to practice deception: can we believe what we see in any photograph? Are the exhibits that we see in London’s museums genuine and, if so, how can we prove that they are? Nowadays we are used to seeing images that have clearly been doctored but in the 1980s, before the digital era, it is easy to see why the public might possibly have been convinced by the data presented in the “Fauna” exhibition. Now that Fontcuberta has been well and truly exposed as a hoaxer his works continue to amuse and entertain, but have lost some of their power to question perception because today's public is far more sceptical of what it sees in the media than it has ever been.

The Science Museum charges a fee (£8.00 for an adult) to visit this exhibition. In my view this is well worthwhile, despite the fact that the layout of the exhibition space makes it very difficult to work through the exhibition in a logical order. Also, the lighting is generally inadequate (both problems were also apparent on my visit to an earlier exhibition here by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr). This is a rare opportunity to enjoy the work of a photographer whose unique blend of creative ideas and universal humour produces an enjoyable, if artificial experience. Suspend disbelief and visit!