With her 1987 video-sculpture Les Larmes d'acier [Steel Tears], the Belgian artist Marie-Jo Lafontaine created a work for documenta VIII in Kassel that caused a huge stir and is still remembered today. This was the international breakthrough for an artist who had already received widespread recognition but who was now greeted as a pioneer in the new media of video art. As David Galloway has said, there is no other European video artist who has mastered the medium with comparable virtuosity. With her photographs and environments Marie-Jo Lafontaine has won increasing admiration over the years amongst her fellow artists. Following the volume Immaculata, published by Cantz in 1992, now publishers and artist together present a fine artist's book covering various aspects of Lafontaine's work over the last fifteen years, which has focused above all on the existential perameters of human existence: video sculptures, installations and photo-works with monochrome painting and text. Carefully selected visual material, texts and quotations from writers and philosophers together create a compelling portrait of this artist, in all her sensitivity and power. (German edition available ISBN 3-89322-945-0) The artist: Marie-Jo Lafontaine, born 1950 in Antwerp. 1975-1979 studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et des Arts Visuels La Cambre, Brussels. 1977: Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge. 1981: Grand Prix de la Littérature Argilienne of Pierre Restany. 1990: visiting lecturer at the Summer Academy in Salzburg. 1992: professor at the Centre for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe. Exhibitions in leading international galleries and museums.