Joan Fontcuberta - 2013 Hasselblad Award Winner

Gothenburg, Sweden (ots/PRNewswire) -

The Hasselblad Foundation is pleased to announce that Catalan
photographer Joan Fontcuberta is the recipient of the 2013 Hasselblad
Foundation International Award in Photography for the sum of SEK
1,000,000 (approximately EUR 110,000). The award ceremony will take
place in Barcelona on 7th March, 2013. An exhibition of his work,
Joan Fontcuberta - 2013 Hasselblad Award Winner will open on 25th
October, 2013 at the Hasselblad Center at the Gothenburg Museum of
Art, Sweden. That day, The Hasselblad Foundation will host a
symposium with the award winner, and a book on the work of Joan
Fontcuberta, published by Mack, will be launched.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click: http://www.mult
ivu.com/pages/58711-joan-fontcuberta-2013-hasselblad-award-winner

The Foundation's citation regarding the decision to award the 2013
prize to Joan Fontcuberta reads as follows:

Joan Fontcuberta is one of the most inventive contemporary
photographers, with an over 30-year achievement of constantly
investigating and questioning the photographic medium. His work is
distinguished by original and playful conceptual approaches that
particularly explore photographic conventions, means of
representation and claims to truth. He challenges concepts of science
and fiction in interdisciplinary projects that extend far beyond the
gallery space. In addition to his photographic practice, Joan
Fontcuberta's capacities as a writer, teacher and curator have been
greatly inspirational to the younger generation.

This year's award committee, which submitted its proposal to the
Foundation's board of directors, consisted of:

- Ute Eskildsen (chair), Professor - Head of the Department of Photography,
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany until 2012.
- Thomas Joshua Cooper, Professor, Photography Department,

Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Great Britain.

- Marcel Feil, Deputy-Director, Artistic Affairs, Foam Amsterdam, the
Netherlands
- Agnes Sire, Director, Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France.

Joan Fontcuberta (born 1955 in Barcelona, Spain) is well known as
a conceptual photographer, and he is also active as a writer, editor,
curator and teacher. He has had a powerful influence on attracting
international recognition of the history of Spanish photography.

Joan Fontcuberta received a degree in communication from the
Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1977. After having worked in
advertising, he taught at the faculty of Fine Arts at the University
of Barcelona from 1979 to 1986. In 1980 he co-founded the magazine
PHOTO VISION, which became an important European photography journal.
Since 1993 he has been Professor of Audiovisual Communication at the
Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Joan Fontcuberta has an
impressive list of exhibitions and publications; he has taught at
numerous institutions, including Harvard University, USA, and in 1994
he was awarded the "Chevalier des Art et Lettre" by the French
Minister of Culture.

Joan Fontcuberta is an artist who works between 'reality' and
'fiction,' by manufacturing photographic illusions loosely based on
'the real'. He creates a visual universe in which concepts of truth
and fiction are intertwined. This dialogue, however, is never brought
to a concrete conclusion but remains elusive. In many ways Joan
Fontcuberta's work both anticipates and integrates the radical impact
of digital manipulation in the field of current photographic
practice.

Since the mid-1980s he has used photography to reflect doubts and
distrust of the authorities as well as of the veracity of photography
itself and the multitude of media that it relates to. What makes Joan
Fontcuberta's work so engaging is the biting humour, sharp wit and
seamless technique with which he infuses all of his elaborate
provocations.

Joan Fontcuberta's work undermines mass media in all of its
guises, scientific investigations, technological breakthroughs, the
art world, religion, medicine and of course, political and
governmental propaganda. He mixes all the forms of media and public
communication. In essence, he creates bodies of work that resemble a
modern-day Trojan horse, and then presents it in scholarly journals,
hardbound' scientific books, large scale museums exhibitions, and as
newsworthy discoveries that dupe even the most professional experts
and journalists as well as their readers.

With irony as an important artistic strategy Joan Fontucuberta
continues to amaze, confound and amuse or provoke the viewer with an
ever-evolving array of techniques and approaches. His topics as and
his focus on recent technologies and his constant changes of method
characterize him as an exceptional photographer and artist.

The Hasselblad Foundation

The Hasselblad Foundation was established in 1979 under the terms
of the last will and testament of Dr. Victor Hasselblad and his wife
Erna. The purpose of the Foundation is to promote scientific
education and research in the natural sciences and photography. One
of the Foundation's awards, the annual international award for
outstanding achievement in photography, awarded in 2013 to Joan
Fontcuberta, is considered the most important photography prize
worldwide.

In the exhibition hall of the Hasselblad Foundation, the
Hasselblad Center, situated in the Gothenburg Museum of Art, five
exhibitions are presented annually, one of which displays works by
that year's Hasselblad Award winner. One of the other annual
exhibitions, New Nordic Photography, promotes younger photographers.
Some of the exhibitions tour in Sweden and abroad. The Foundation
also has a photo collection focusing on Hasselblad Award Winners and
Nordic photographers.

The exhibition of Joan Fontcuberta's works will be opened at the
Hasselblad Center on 25th October, 2013 and will be curated by
Dragana Vujanovic and Louise Wolthers.

HASSELBLAD FOUNDATION
Ekmansgatan 8
SE-412 56 Gothenburg, Sweden
Phone +46-31-778-2154
jenny.blixt@hasselbladfoundation.org

For further information and for press material:
http://www.hasselbladfoundation.org. User name: press, password: hs2013 or contact
Jenny Blixt.

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ots Originaltext: Hasselblad Foundation
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