Marie-Jo Lafontaine
Marie-Jo Lafontaine (born November 17, 1950) is a sculptor and video artist from Antwerp (Anvers), Belgium. She now lives and works as a Professor of Media Arts at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in Brussels, Belgium. Lafontaine studied from 1975 to 1979 at l'École nationale supérieure d'architecture et des arts visuels. Lafontaine has worked in many media including "tapestries" in which she weaves black-dyed wool into linear patterns; sculptural work using plaster, concrete, and lead; and photography. In 1980, Lafontaine started using video in her sculptures and has created installations and environments utilizing  video. She was awarded the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge in 1977; in 1986 she was awarded a FIACRE grant from the French Ministry of Culture, and in 1996 she won the European Photography Award. Critic Konstanze Thümmel describes the dominating themes her post-1980s video work as "association between Eros and Thanatos, passion and reason," and it Lafontaine explores these "...through powerful images of people and animals in extreme situations." Key Works. Lafontaine is best known for her work Les larmes d'acier (1986).