From September 14 to December 22, 2024, the exhibition Joan Fontcuberta: What Darwin Missed presents a new series of around 60 works conceived especially for the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation by the internationally renowned Catalan photographer, curator, essayist and lecturer Joan Fontcuberta (*1955). The artist is known for his play with the public and the boundaries between reality and fiction. In his works, he reflects on the role of photography in the representation of reality and has repeatedly taken a critical but also humorously provocative look at the image in scientific disciplines such as botany and zoology.
Image above: Joan Fontcuberta, Testa abyssalis, 2024 © Joan Fontcuberta
For the current exhibition, Fontcuberta has worked intensively with the Foundation’s archive and continued a research project that Alfred Ehrhardt began in 1938 for the Hamburg Natural History Museum but was unable to complete due to historical circumstances.
Let us briefly outline the history: To mark the 100th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s 1842 publication The structure and distribution of coral reefs, Alfred Ehrhardt was commissioned to photograph the coral collection of the Hamburg Natural History Museum in 1938. Eight of these photographs will be on display in the exhibition, supplemented by Ehrhardt’s award-winning film Corals – Sculptures of the Seas from 1964, which can be seen as a late fulfillment of his commission. Together with the head of the coral collection, he was to trace a highly specialized coral species on the Galapagos and Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the footsteps of Charles Darwin and the Valdivia deep-sea expedition. Due to the outbreak of the Second World War, neither the expedition nor a publication was published. In 1943, the Hamburg Natural History Museum, and with it the coral collection, was completely destroyed in the firestorm.
Joan Fontcuberta has been working artistically with unusual and scientific phenomena since the 1980s. Ehrhardt’s photographs of corals fascinate him, among other things, because these strange zoological creatures were mistaken for hybrid species from the plant and mineral kingdoms. However, he was particularly attracted by the idea of undertaking the expedition that never took place and searching for the coral species that Darwin had missed.
Fontcuberta set off on a journey and found what he was looking for: His photographs were taken both in these remote locations and in collections of European natural history museums (Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, Bologna, Granollers). They show a wide variety of corals, including a newly discovered species called Cryptocnidaria, which shows extreme adaptation to certain environmental conditions such as very high or low temperatures, unusual pH values or high water pressure in the deep sea. These Cryptocnidaria allow speculation about abnormal genetic effects, possibly caused by chemicals or radioactivity. The speed and complexity of these adaptations challenge Darwin’s evolutionary model that such changes should evolve gradually over many generations through random mutations and natural selection.
Behind the exquisite elegance of nature’s forms, seen through the filter of New Objectivity photography and scientific photography, Fontcuberta’s discovery not only poses a great challenge to Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also challenges the viewer to take a closer look. The research trip is the narrative moment from which the exhibition develops, which is based entirely on the relationship between facts and speculation, science and art – not everything that the eye sees should be accepted unchecked as true, and not everything that claims to be scientific is necessarily correct. In the exhibition, Fontcuberta’s coral photographs enter into a dialog with original finds from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. The natural history exhibits of the corals are given a new quality by the photographs taken by the artist especially for this exhibition.
Fontcuberta’s photographs testify to the need to rethink our approaches to understanding the origin and diversity of life on earth. Following Darwin, he argues for the necessity of doubt and shows that even the most accepted theories must always be questioned, because science is nothing more than a series of provisional truths.
Above all, however, he encourages visitors not to succumb to the convincing illusion of images.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Joan Fontcuberta, Rosa Russo and Christiane Stahl, 112 pages, 60 illustrations, Kominek Verlag, 2024.
In collaboration with the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
Saturday, September 14, 2024, 6 pm, opening of the exhibition Joan Fontcuberta: eHerbarium at Galerie Kominek, Immanuelkirchstrasse 25, 10405 Berlin (September 14 to October 26, 2024)
Accompanying events
Sunday, September 15, 2024, 4 pm: Artist Talk with Joan Fontcuberta and Dr. Christiane Stahl, Director of the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation (in English)
Thursday, November 21, 2024, 7 pm: Film evening: “Die toten Vögel sind oben”, documentary film by Sönje Storm, followed by a discussion with Sönje Storm
WHEN?
Opening: Friday, September 13, 2024, 7 – 9 pm
Exhibition dates: Saturday, September 14 – Sunday, December 22, 2024
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm
WHERE?
Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung
Auguststr. 75
10117 Berlin
