Joan Fontcuberta's 'Cultura di polvere' Transforms Decayed Negatives into Surreal Landscapes

At the ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) in Rome's ex-chiesa delle Zitelle, Joan Fontcuberta presents 'Cultura di polvere,' a series of 12 large-format lightboxes created during his residency at the institute. The Spanish artist (born 1955 in Barcelona) selected and enlarged details from deteriorated negatives belonging to Prince Francesco Chigi Albani della Rovere, held in ICCD's collections. Fontcuberta magnifies stains, scratches, mold, dust, and bacteria on the original photograms, generating surreal, macabre, lenticular, and microbic landscapes. The work, a winner of the PAC2021 – Piano per l’Arte Contemporanea promoted by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero della Cultura, references Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray's 1920 'Élevage de poussière.' Fontcuberta's images evoke the Renaissance vanitas tradition seen in Hans Baldung Grien and the Master of the Upper Rhine, while engaging with philosophical concepts of time and existence from Vladimir Jankélévitch and Martin Heidegger. The exhibition runs in 2023.