Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's London exhibition confronts art's environmental guilt

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster presented a solo exhibition titled 'Intensité Assouvissante' at Corvi-Mora in London from 13 April to 16 June 2018. The show featured her ongoing Apparitions series (2012–), consisting of 30 photographic self-portraits where she impersonates cultural icons like Edgar Allan Poe, Bob Dylan, and Marilyn Monroe. These works acknowledge Cindy Sherman's influence while displaying more affectionate portrayals. A red-tinted mirror allowed visitors to see their reflections among the photographs. The main gallery space appeared nearly empty except for a small potted palm seedling on a windowsill. Vinyl text installations titled Textbau (2018) covered walls and ceilings with five paragraphs expressing environmental anxiety. The writings question art's ecological impact, comparing artistic production to destroying forests for opera sets. Gonzalez-Foerster noted her work traveled to nine exhibitions in 2017 across Shanghai, Berlin, and Saskatoon, creating significant carbon emissions. The texts describe art as both self-reflection and a toxic force that ravages the artist's health. She explicitly questions whether to continue developing what she calls 'the (art) monster.' This largely dematerialized exhibition represents the artist's crisis of conscience about aligning art with capitalist production systems. The show was reviewed in ArtReview's Summer 2018 issue.