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Quote by Joan Fontcuberta

“Photography... has lived under the tyranny of its subject matter: the object has exercised an almost total domination.”

Quote by Joan Fontcuberta

Author

Joan Fontcuberta

Joan Fontcuberta is a renowned conceptual artist known for his photographic works and multimedia installations. His art often delves into the authenticity and fictionality of photography, as well as the role of media in shaping reality. Born on February 24, 1955, Fontcuberta's artistic career is marked by a deep exploration of photography and the visual language. more

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“The heart [of my work], the quintessential, remains the questioning of photographic truth. Be careful, be critical, doubt, and filter the information you receive.”

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“Every photograph is a fiction with pretensions to truth. Despite everything that we have been inculcated, all that we believe, photography always lies; it lies instinctively, lies because its nature does not allow it to do anything else.”

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“Photography mirrored the [nineteenth century] will towards rigor, towards defining details, the need for miniscule description, the long-distance optics, for technology at the service of truth, for concepts of credibility, of objectivity, the need to archive, for the consolidation of institutions like the museum, in short, towards a need to control memory.”

“Among photojournalists there is still a sense that doing a photomontage is far graver than adding a filter. I am against this type of hierarchy that demonizes some options over others, demonizes them in respect to, what - ideology or moral code?”

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“I need there to be documentary photographers, because my work is meta-documentary; it is a commentary about the documentary use of photography.”

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“My grandfather killed himself falling off the dike in Ostend while photographing my two cousins. This can happen so easily when looking through a lens: for a split second nothing else exists outside the frame.”

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“I feel concerned by what happens in the world.... I don't want to merely document; I want to know why a certain thing disturbs or attracts me and how a situation can affect the person involved.”

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“What I like so much about photography is precisely the moment that cannot be anticipated; one must be constantly on the alert, ready to acclaim the unexpected.”

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“A photograph is not necessarily a lie, but it isn't the truth either. It's more like a fleeting, subjective impression.”

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“Photography came as a substitute. I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult; a camera in hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere, a witness, but not an actor.”

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