Fireplace Gallery presents the exhibition e-Herbarium of Joan Fontcuberta.
For Joan Fontcuberta (Barcelona, 1955), photographing nature is a way of reflecting on the nature of photography. His famous project Herbarium (1982-84) did just that: illustrate an era of growing environmental awareness, biotechnology, or genetic control over living forms. Fontcuberta’s eye was already well trained in conceptual art, counterculture (mainly Dadaism and Surrealism), and postmodernism. Herbarium revisits botanical illustrations in a post-industrial world, while paying ironic homage to the German photographer Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932).
After four decades of presenting Herbarium In art galleries around the world, nature and photography have changed a lot. Their evolution has been a major subject in Fontcuberta’s works as a renowned photographer, essayist and curator, so he thought of revisiting his own beginnings in 2024 using tools like generative artificial intelligence (AI). The result was e-Herbariumas stimulating and valid as the one from the 80s, hosted by the Kominek gallery in Berlin.
Post-nature as art
It all began in this same Berlin a century ago, when sculptor Karl Blossfeldt taught plant modeling at the School of Arts and Crafts. The close-up photographs of plants he used as reference material for his students have become landmarks of modern photography. Blossfeldt celebrated the elegant forms of nature in his acclaimed publication Original forms of art (Original Forms of Art, 1928), a reference work in the German New Objectivity movement.
Blossfeldt’s exquisite aesthetics and romantic vision of nature as the source of art forms inspired Joan Fontcuberta. He applied these ideas to a post-natural, polluted world where life forms were no longer the result of natural selection, but of artificial human intervention. His detailed black and white images show a hybrid mix of plants and waste found in Barcelona’s industrial areas, ranging from plastic to animal bones or parts.
New specimens like Hymena flaccidum, Scratch cove or Guillumeta polymorpha were the surprising result, as well as a renewed interest in the works of Karl Blossfeldt. In 1985, the University of Berlin exhibited a selection of Blossfeldt originals alongside Fontcuberta’s images for Herbariumcurated by Joachim Schmid. Numerous galleries and museums around the world will follow.
Alchemy and algorithm
In addition to anticipating topics such as cloning, biotechnology and environmental issues, Herbarium challenged our assumptions about the objectivity of scientific images. Originally conceived as a new take on Blossfeldt’s legacy, this version of e-Herbarium 2024 reinvents Joan Fontcuberta’s exhibition for the digital age.
Fontcuberta has already explored the possibilities of AI image-generating tools in projects like Florilegium, De rerum natura or his reference writings. He now uses his original Herbarium images as a model and introduces current topics using AI prompts. This mix of old and new generates surprising twists in his own visual narrative, while reinforcing his theories on photography moving from alchemy to algorithm.
The Secret Truth of Plants
As in Fontcuberta’s later works, Herbarium offers much more than meets the eye. Like the best jokes, this new botanical atlas hits the mark on topics as they did 40 years ago. Images considered as autonomous living creatures in the image-rich 2020s; the boundaries between fact and fiction; the illusion of truth in photographic documents; our tendency to accept arguments based on belief rather than fact; and our approach to an ever-changing nature.
Beyond thee-Herbariumthe collaboration between Joan Fontcuberta and Kominek Gallery in 2024 also includes a special edition of Fontcuberta’s Fauna (1985-89) by Kominek Books, and his new project What Darwin Missed.
Joan Fontcuberta : e-Herbarium
September 14 — October 26, 2024
Exhibition opening: September 14, 2024 at 6 p.m.
Fireplace Gallery
Immanuelkirchstrasse 25.
10405 Berlin, Germany
www.kominekominekominek.com
Kominek Gallery Berlin / Opening hours:
Fridays from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. and by appointment
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