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For a 2003-07 series of photographic prints called "Savannah surrounding Bangui, and the River Utubangui," French artist Isabelle Cornaro arranged gold jewelry on a piece of plywood, suggesting landscapes by way of the delicate lines made by gold chains or the shadows cast by the ridges of the watch. In fact, the works were based on maps of Central African Republic, a nation that exported gold and diamonds to France during colonization. Cornaro, who was recently in residence at the Palais de Tokyo, often combines objects with emotional resonance, like her family’s jewelry or hair (which she lays out à la Fred Sandback to create architectural drawings on paper), with historical items to comment on the cultural construction of landscape. For her first solo exhibition in Germany, Cornaro will present Paysage avec poussin et témoins oculaires, an installation based on a landscape painting by Poussin; it includes metric instruments and a vase of flowers, as well as drawings, prints, booklets, videos, and new works that apply her conceptual wit with the lightest of touches.

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"Isabelle Cornaro" originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' February 2009 Table of Contents.