Joan Fontcuberta, uno de los principales exponentes del arte visual contemporáneo, desarrolla, a través de la manipulación de la imagen fotográfica, obras capaces de dirigir una mirada crítica sobre la veracidad y el valor producido por las imágenes tecnológicas.
En Reggio Emilia, para el Palazzo dei Musei, ha realizado una obra de arte pública permanente, que lleva el arte a la calle: un fotomosaico de cerámica, de 16 metros de altura y seis de anchura, en el que doce mil fotografías enviadas por los ciudadanos se combinan en una única gran imagen, el pavo real conservado en los propios museos.
La fabricación de las cerámicas que componen la obra —cada una de las treinta placas es una pieza única que configura la gran imagen—, se ha efectuado en colaboración con Marazzi, que albergó a Fontcuberta durante las fases de producción e impresión digital.
La proyección y la instalación de la fachada ventilada de la obra le confió a Marazzi Engineering, división especializada de la empresa.
El vídeo con el resultado de la obra puede verse en el siguiente ENLACE.
The ceramics which make up the work - each of the thirty slabs is a one-off piece, making up part of the large image - were produced in partnership with Marazzi, which welcomed Fontcuberta as a guest during the production and digital printing phases. The work’s design and installation as a ventilated wall structure was handled by the City of Reggio Emilia, which took charge of the overall project for the area’s redevelopment, and Marazzi Engineering, the company’s specialist division.
The work is also inspired by a dialogue with the collections housed in the Reggio Emilia museums, a rich heritage of knowledge, studies, discoveries and experiments, expressing and generated by curiosity and a natural propensity for wonder. “Curiosa Meravigliosa” is a “document-monument”, as the artist defines it, a collective work that reflects on the meaning of photography in an area which, thanks to the example of Luigi Ghirri and the Fotografia Europea festival, has a long history of constant investigation of the use of this medium in all its thousand forms.
The peacock has been created in digital high definition on large slimline slabs, one-off pieces in porcelain stoneware, which build up an image of 16 x 6 metres. The production process involved the Marazzi laboratory and factory, which also welcomed Joan Fontcuberta to their facilities during the preparatory and printing phases. In addition, the ventilated wall on which the work is mounted was constructed on a “turnkey” basis by Marazzi Engineering. We discussed the creation and construction of “Curiosa Meravigliosa” with the Spanish artist, who also told us about his increasing fascination with printing on ceramics.