FONTCUBERTA, Joan and
FORMIGUERA, Pere.
Dr. Ameisenhaufen's Fauna. Gottingen: European Photography, 1988. First edition.
Roth 101. Calling into question the conventions of photographic believability, the conceptual art piece 'mimics the look and feel of a scientific study so well that it occasionnally appears in libraries and bookstores as a zoology text' (Roth 101, pp. 262-265) Joan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera claim to have discovered a small remnant of the 15-volume oeuvre of Dr. Peter Ameisenhaufen (1895-1955?). The catalog contains a preface (in English and German) by Foncuberta and Formiguera followed by 63 pages of notes, drawings, and photographs documenting Dr. Ameisenhaufen's specimens and taxonomic theories. The volume is a hoax, meant to be a work of art, but the author's were surprised by the amount of people who accepted it as reality. A near fine copy in wrappers.
Surprisingly uncommon. £350