JOAN FONTCUBERTA - Microantozous galapagensis

Paper: Giclée prints on Hahnemühle Museum Fine Art paper
Size: 60 x 50 cm
Edition: 5
Year: 2024
Certificate: Signed and numbered by the artist.

JOAN FONTCUBERTA – Microantozous galapagensis

In Microantozous galapagensis, Fontcuberta condenses the immense drama of evolution into a single microscopic enigma. The work resembles an electron microscope image – precise, austere, authoritative – that one would expect to find in a scientific archive rather than an art gallery. But here the illusion is complete and deceptive: a perfectly forged fossil of a species that never existed.

The fictional name Microantozous galapagensis sounds reassuringly credible – with the Latin cadence of scientific certainty. It refers to the Galápagos Islands, Darwin's sacred ground, but Fontcuberta transforms this geography of origin into a geography of invention. His coral is not a discovery, but a hallucination of research itself.

In stark black and white, the ribs of the organism writhe like the folds of a brain or the layers of a geological record. It is both organic and intellectual – evolution and thought merge into one form. Fontcuberta's irony is profound: by imitating the language of scientific truth so faithfully, he reveals its susceptibility to fiction.

What we see is not evidence, but performance. The ‘micro’ in Microantozous refers not only to size, but also to the tiny threshold where fact and fiction take off their masks. Under the guise of precision, Fontcuberta reveals the exquisite absurdity of knowledge.