Noeve presents the new book by Vincent Fournier : Brasilia.
A Time Capsule
“My interest in the city of Brasilia comes from a mixture of fascination and nostalgia for the stories and representations of the Future. Indeed, the Brazilian capital designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built in 4 years in the middle of a desert, embodies the vision of the future of the 60s. The pilot plan conceived in 1957 by urban planner Lucio Costa coincides with the beginning of the space age and the first artificial satellite of Earth: Sputnik. It is the golden age of the space age, and the city of Brasilia, with its air of a flying saucer that would have landed in the middle of nowhere, shows nostalgia and the dream of a future frozen in time. The case is unique because of its size, an entire city, and its state of conservation: the city’s pilot plan has remained unchanged due to its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Brasilia, a fossilized modernist temple in a utopian future, is a veritable time capsule. For this series, I used the city as a setting in which the inhabitants are staged. During my wanderings, different stories came to mind: On Exactitude in Science by Jorge Luis Borges (1946) and this strange empire whose geographical map covers the whole territory, The Desert of the Tartars by Dino Buzzati (1940) and the story of a man who waits all his life for an event that will not happen or the film The Truman Show by Peter Weir (1988) whose hero lives in an illusion. Finally, we must also mention the breathtaking and crazy beauty of the city of Brasilia where absolutely everything is composed with the same writing: linear, precise, minimal, fluid, radical, airy, monumental, musical…”.
I used the city as a backdrop for this series of work, one in which its own inhabitants were part of the staging. During my travels I kept coming back to the stories of Jorge Luis Borges and the strange empire whose map covers the city; (Fictions, 1946), by Dino Buzzatti and the idea of time on the run (The Desert of the Tartars, 1940), or the movie, “The Truman Show”, by Peter Weir (1988) whose hero lives in an illusion. Finally, we must also mention the breath-taking and crazy beauty of the city of Brasilia where absolutely everything is composed with the same writing: linear, precise, minimal, fluid, radical, aerial, monumental, musical …
Vincent Fournier
Part of the series “Brasilia” is part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (text available on the MET website) and the LVMH collection in Paris.”
Vincent Fournier is a French artist who explores significant mythologies of the future: space exploration, utopian architecture, artificial intelli- gence, living technology… After being awarded a diploma in both socio- logy and visual arts, he studies at the National School of Photography in Arles and obtains his diploma in 1997.
His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropo- litan Museum of Art (MET) New York, the Centre Pompidou Paris, the LVMH contemporary Art collection Paris (with Le Bon Marché), MAST Foundation Bologna, the Vontobel Art Collection Zürich, Baccarat Art Collection New York, Domaine des Etangs Massignac, or Fondation Bullukian among others.
He has been participating in major exhibitions such as The Universe and Art at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Art Science Museum in Singapore or solo shows at the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo) during Foto Industria 2018 or les Rencontres d’Arles in 2014.
Vincent Fournier was the guest of the MET for a public presentation of his work at the conference In Our Time – A Year of Architecture in a Day in 2019.
Vincent Fournier : Brasilia
Published by Noeve
€44.90
