D o m i n i q u e   G o n z a l e z - F o e r s t e r

b. 1965, Strasbourg, France
Lives and works in Paris, France

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Riyo 1999 Digital video projection, 10 minutes Courtesy of the artist

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s work is characterized by a quiet, intimate interrogation of contemporary urban life. Exploring cinematic conventions, temporality and subjective experience, her short films and installations recreate specific moments in which individuals intersect with places - highlighting the individual nuances of cultural and social contexts. Shot in Kyoto, her film Riyo (1999) is a self-consciously touristic work, sensitive to the clichés and anaesthetizing effects of media culture. As the camera’s indifferent gaze tracks across the façades of anonymous city buildings, a banal telephone conversation between a Japanese teenage boy and girl is overheard. The positions of the camera and the viewer merge into one, while the border between the disembodied callers identities and the city we are seeing becomes fluid. Their coy, weightless words present an unexpected snapshot of lived urban experience; fleeting, immature, emotional. The intonations of their voices, impenetrable to the western ear, become a soundscape that turns an implicit critique of the culture of spectacle and apathetic voyeurism into a melancholy cinematographic fugue. As our own position shifts between intimacy and tourism in front of the cityscape at dusk, our sense of self resonates with the real and imaginary spaces we inhabit – left to play the quintessential urban game of the flâneur; able neither to fully identify with nor fully dissociate from the signs and symbols that constitute the city.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Riyo 1999 Digital video projection, 10 minutes Courtesy of the artist

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2002 Exotourism: Marcel Duchamp Prize 2002, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. Ipanema Theorie / Plages, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. 2001 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany. Riyo & Central, Festival International du Film, Cannes, France. 1998 Tropical Modernité, Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, Spain. 88:88, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany. 1997 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Institute of Visual Arts, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI. 1996 Zone de Tournage, Kunsthalle Fri-Art, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Fribourg, France. 1994 Intérieurs, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 1993 Numéro bleu, ARC/Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Riyo 1999 Digital video projection, 10 minutes Courtesy of the artist

Selected Group Exhibitions
2001 International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Yokohama, Japan. Egofugal, Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey. Cosmodrome (with Jay Johanson), Le Consortium, Dijon, France. Double Life, EA-Generali Foundation, Vienna, Austria. 2000 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany. Voilà, le monde dans la tête, ARC/Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Elysian Fields, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. Future perfect, Centre for the Visual Arts, Cardiff, Wales. Vivre sa Vie, The Centre, Glasgow, Scotland. 1999 D’Apertutto (with Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno), 48. Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy. 1998 Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany. Manifesta 2, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Luxembourg. Premises: Invested Spaces in Visual Arts, Architecture, and Design from France 1958-98, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. 1997 Cities on the Move, Weiner Secession, Vienna, Austria. Niemandsland, Museum Haus Esters; Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany. It Always Jumps…, De Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 1996 Traffic, CAPC/Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France. 1995 The Moral Maze, Le Consortium, Dijon, France. 1994 The Winter of Love, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; ARC/Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France. 1993 Aperto, 45. Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy.

Further Reading
Birnbaum, Daniel, "Best of 2001: 10 Top Tens," Artforum International v.40 no.4 (Dec. 2001): 98-99
Crowe, Jenny, "Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: Neohorizon: The Centre, Glasgow, " Make no.91 (Mar.-May 2001): 37-38
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, exh. cat. (ARC Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris: Paris, France, 1998)
Lequeux, Emanuelle, "Qu'est-ce qui fait tourner Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster?," Aden no.149, 2001
Parreno, Philippe, "Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster," Documents sur l'art no.7 (Spring, 1995)
Pontégnie, Anne, ” Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: Galerie Jan Mot" (tr. Jeanine Herman), Artforum International v.39 no.8 (Apr. 2001): 149
Royoux, Jean-Christophe, "Cinéma d'exposition:l'espacement de la durée," Art Press no.261 (Oct. 2000)
88:88 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Kaiser Wilhelm Museum: Krefeld, Germany, 1998)
Weil, Benjamin, “Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster – A Broken Interview,” Flash Art no.163 (Apr.-May, 1992): 94-95

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