If I constructed a list of past exhibitions that I wish I could have seen first hand, Joan Fontcuberta & Pere Formiguera's Fauna (1987) would possibly be at the very top of the list.
Fauna, also referred to as Secret Fauna and Dr. Ameisenhaufen's Fauna, originally released as a "serious" piece of journalism and later turned exhibition, was set up as the "long lost" zoological findings of "Dr. Ameisenhaufen", a German who had "mysteriously disappeared" in 1955. The exhibition included a collection of photographs of strange animals (both in the field and in laboratories), field notes (in German and English), sketches, x-rays, tapes of the animal's sounds, dissected and reconstructed stuffed specimen, letters and diaries, and a film with people talking about Ameisenhaufen's life.
Everything in and about the exhibition was fake. Fontcuberta made the images, and Fomiguera wrote the accompanying text. (Ameisenhaufen and Fomiguera both translate to "anthill", and Ameisenhaufen's assistant Hans von Kubert bears a striking oral similarity to Joan Fontcuberta.) The photographs, which are really just too fantastic to believe in the first place, were created through photocollage as well as by dissembling taxidermy and creating new frankenstein creatures. Fomiguera perfects the scientific jargon to pull things together in a way that is just over the top enough to make the viewer question if it's for real.
I believe that the project was brilliant. The playfulness and humor is perfect, and it was executed, as I mentioned, to just the right degree. In her September 1988 review of the show for the New York Times, Roberta Smith questions if it's truly "art". It is always risky to try and pin down what "can" and "can't" be labeled art, and she acknowledges this, then continues on as though she is some sort of hero by confronting such a frequently danced around question. Though she does call the exhibition wonderful, and attempts to back up her argument with references to other controversial pieces and stating whether she considers them to be "art" or "something else" I have to say that I think she is pretty off on this one. I'll keep it brief because I could write a whole essay in response to hers, but she says in reference to Fauna as well as works by Mapplethorpe and Hockney, "...all this work seemed to reside in a kind of esthetic no man's land between art and something else, a something else that was in some ways more beautiful, skillful and accessible and, above all, more instantly consumable than actual art" - suggesting that art has to be on some sort of high, inaccessible level in order to be considered art. I think that this is crap, and that Fauna is a perfect example of art that doesn't need to be picked apart and ambled over in order to be appreciated.
The duo, as well as museums and galleries that displayed the project, also received criticism because of its "deceptive" nature. Though after a moment of serious examination it is clearly a spoof, people felt as though it called the "authority of the photograph into question", and wrote it off (much like Smith) as a "literary hoax" vs. a piece of art. This seems even more silly to me than the last issue, because though in the 80's there was not photoshop and images were not being manipulated as frequently as they are now, photographs have been altered since their invention in the 1800s. It seems absolutely ludicrous to me that people were up in arms about this, when things such as spirit photography have been engineered into reality since the accidental realization of double exposures. If it does not immediately occur to you that you should second guess a scientific study involving photographs of winged monkeys then you should be worried about yourself, not the authenticity of photography. It is this authenticity that photography is so frequently inherently given that Fontcuberta and Formiguera were attempting to playfully call attention to.
Anyway, I think it is most undoubtedly art (because what good is art if it's a. only accessible to the high and elite, and b. it can't occasionally make you think AND laugh?) and that it's a great piece. There exists a book of the entire "study", but it would seem that it's somewhat hard to come across. Hopefully some day I'll get to see a copy. Until then, try a google search! (If anyone can find a good link with the images feel free to post it, I couldn't find one).
Fontcuberta's (extremely sparse) website
September 1988 NYTimes article
July 1988 NYTimes article, also by Smith
images: various sources, c. Joan Fontcuberta & Pere Formiguera
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