Chamber of Deputies, Dome above the Assembly Room, Brasília

Vincent Fournier French, born Burkina Faso
2012
Not on view
This photograph by French artist Vincent Fournier, part of his 2012 series Brasilia, is an angled aerial view of the Chamber of Deputies, designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). This building is one of the most familiar and recognizable in iconic "skylines" of the city. However, the artist chooses a complex top perspective in a shooting angle that presents an alienating and denaturalized image of the building closer to an imaginary UFO. Fournier’s unusual and uncanny perspective challenges many of the aesthetic principles of modernist architectural compositions.

Fournier’s work and practice in and around architecture propose a journey through some of the most representative utopias of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Brasilia project represents a particular interest in architecture’s relationship with time and fiction, in an effort to portray architecture as nuanced, subjective and creative as seen through the medium of film and photography.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Chamber of Deputies, Dome above the Assembly Room, Brasília
  • Artist: Vincent Fournier (French, born Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 1970)
  • Date: 2012
  • Medium: Inkjet print
  • Edition: from an edition of 10
  • Dimensions: 35 7/16 × 60 1/4 in. (90 × 153 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Roy R. and Marie S. Neuberger Foundation Inc. Gift, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.323
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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