Conills de Mendel Photography by Joan Fontcuberta

Photography by Joan Fontcuberta made in Madrid (Spain), circa 1980, signed by stamp. Measures: 14.5 x 13.5 cm, Gelatin silver bromide, framed. Joan Fontcuberta (born 24 February 1955 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain) 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 received a degree in communications from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1977. He worked in advertising in his early career, and his family had also worked in advertising. 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. In 1980 he co-founded the Spanish or English visual arts journal PhotoVision, and he is still Editor in Chief. Since 1993 Fontcuberta has been a professor of audiovisual communication at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Among other teaching appointments, he was visiting lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University in 2003. Among other awards, he was named an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 1994. His curatorial experience includes serving as the Artistic Director of the 1996 Rencontres d'Arles, an international photography festival. 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.