Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, an influential French contemporary artist and figure, was born in 1967 in Strasbourg. She has lived in Paris and in Rio de Janeiro. From 1982 to 1987 she frequented the National School of Fine Arts in Grenoble.
In 1986 she receives a scholarship at the Kunstakademie of Dusseldorf. She then frequents Le Magasin – Centre National d’Art Contemporain, in Grenoble, and the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques in Paris. She participates in two artistic residencies in Japan within the context of the Arcus Project, in Ibaraki, (1994) and at the Villa Kujoyama, in Kyoto (1996-1997). She is awarded the Mies van der Rohe Prize and the Marcel Duchamp prize in 2002. In the 90’s she stands out for challenging the frontiers of plastic arts, effectively bridging the gap between neighbouring fields, such as architecture, cinema, music, fashion and literature, which culminated in such diverse experiences as interventions at gardens or emblematic buildings of the modernist period, concerts, radio workshops, sound installations in partnership with musicians and the refurbishing of the Balenciaga stores in New York, Paris and Hong Kong.
Her more recent exhibitions include 1887-2058 at the Centre Pompidou, considered one of the most important exhibitions of the year in France; K.20 in Dusseldorf (2015/2016), Temporama at the MAM, Rio de Janeiro (2015) and Splendide Hotel, at the Palacio de Cristal/Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid (2014). She also staged QM. 16 in Paris, 2016. Her latest films are Otello 1885, Vera and Mr Hyde and Lola Montez in Berlin. Recently, she created a site-specific work – Pynchon Park – for the inauguration of the new Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon (MAAT).
LEFFEST has dedicated a cycle/retrospective to her in 2013 with the artist in attendance, who was also a member of the Official Selection – In Competition Jury. In 2016, LEFFEST hosted the book launch of Marienbad Eléctrico, an account of her creative relationship with Enrique Vila-Matas, and screened her most recent films.
This year she year again collaborate with Enrique Villa-Matas, at the conference Bastian Schneider [Radically Not Original].
AT THE FESTIVAL
BASTIAN SCHNEIDER [RADICALLY NOT ORIGINAL]
November 25th, 7PM
Teatro Nacional D. Maria II