Marie-Jo Lafontaine (*1950) can be counted among the most highly regarded artists of the present ever since she appeared at the documenta 8 in 1987 in Kassel with her spectacular video installation “Les larmes d’acier”.
Lafontaine’s movies circumscribe aspects of human existence in a dramatic way using picture and sound. The search for a motive and actor, which is defined using extensive photographic research, ranks first, well before the making of the actual movie. Lafontaine picks the most intense portraits from numerous photographs for her photographic oeuvre. Being a painter and a sculptor, she complements the massively framed photographs with monochrome coloured plates and stages grand pictorial experiences.

After her first single exhibition in Germany at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover in 1986, she celebrated her first gallery show at the walter storms galerie in Munich in 1988.