JOAN FONTCUBERTA - Leptogorgia christiae

Paper: Giclée prints on Hahnemühle Museum Fine Art paper
Size: 50 x 40 cm
Edition: 5
Year: 2024
Certificate: Signed and numbered by the artist.

JOAN FONTCUBERTA – Leptogorgia christiae

In Leptogorgia christiae, Fontcuberta invents a coral so convincing that even Darwin would have taken notes. Its fiery red branches unfold with anatomical precision – every curve and every branch is as if shaped by evolution itself, yet too rhythmic, too artful, too deliberate. This is nature, rewritten by a trickster.

The name Leptogorgia christiae plays a double game. It mimics the nomenclature of soft corals within the Gorgoniidae family, while the invented epithet christiae sounds like a dedication – perhaps to a fictional scientist, or perhaps to the act of faith itself. After all, faith is the real subject here: faith in what we see, in what we name, in what we call ‘real.’

Fontcuberta uses AI with mischievous restraint, allowing the illusion of truth to blossom before it quietly implodes. The branching forms of the coral are reminiscent of both botanical diagrams and neural networks, connecting organic life with artificial cognition. It is a coral, yes – but also a thought made visible.

Leptogorgia christiae thrives in the space between taxonomy and mythology, between marine biology and metaphysics. It reminds us that the ocean of images, like evolution, is full of improbable creatures – and that sometimes the most convincing of these are entirely invented.