Collaboration Peter Hill and J.J. Voss (Photographer)
S U P E R F I C T I O N S
Fontcuberto and Formiguero
Fontcuberto and Formiguero are two Spanish artists who have created the archives
of a dead zoologist Dr Peter Ameisenhaufen.
Before his fatal car crash on a lonely Scottish road this eminent scientist had
discovered many new species of animal life. According to Perspektief magazine No 36,
" The new species of Dr Ameisenhaufen are of a completely different calibre (from the
many new species of flora and fauna discovered every year). Most of them differ so
strongly from the forms known so far, that whole new families or perhaps even orders
will have to be created...... in the south of India, for example, he discovered a
snake with many high legs which he baptised Solenoglypha polipoodida . Despite every
effort only one could be captured, which, after much deliberation was sacrificed in
order to examine its insides."
Cercopithecus Icarocornu, Juan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera, 1985-88
One of the earliest references to this Spanish duo comes from Artforum (October 1989,
review section) in which Jean Fisher says, " (Ameisenhaufen's) disappearance is not
without trace; what remains is the Fauna series: fragments of his archives of personal
memorabilia, and of scientific data - taxonomic and behavioural notes, photographs, audio
tapes, maps charting species distribution, stuffed "specimens".
"Among the strange hybrid species that comprise this exhibition are Alopex Stultus ,
which has the unique ability to camouflage itself as a shrub, and Micostrium Vulgaris ,
characterised as "a gregarious animal (with) a tremendous capacity for mimicry in
semiaquatic environments."
