Lara Favaretto
25 Nov 2006 - 03 Feb 2007
Lara Favaretto
COMINCIÒ CH’ERA FINITA
(IT BEGAN WHILE IT WAS ALREADY OVER)
Two years ago Lara Favaretto’s intervention 'Tutti giu per la terra!' surprised passers-by on the wintry Linienstrasse: through the gallery window they could see an installation made of one ton of confetti and four ventilators, the colourful paper cut-outs swirling around in the air in a wonderful wild carnival’s dance. Now we are very happy to announce the second solo exhibition of the Turin artist (b.1973) at the Zimmerstrasse gallery.
Cominciò ch’era finita is the main work lending its title to the exhibition: in the darkened gallery space a round wooden platform with textile walls and an iron pole is spinning around its own axis, reminiscent of both, a merry-go-round, a cinema theatre and a mobile war tent. It is turning at accelerated speed, as if there had been an electrical short circuit and the machine has gone crazy, making the barely lit inside almost invisible. The title, It Began While It Was Already Over, refers to the infinite cyclical movement of the spinning merry-go-round, a movement without a beginning or end, the futility of an action that exists for its own sake. Taken literally the title also expresses a feeling of sadness and frustration inherent in the exhibition - the melancholy of a missed encounter, and the nostalgic longing for a past event. The exhibited works all play out a deliberate denial of access to an insight or understanding: the merry-go-round is spinning so fast that the spectator’s gaze cannot fully grasp what’s inside the tent; a film that is originally 14 minutes long is shown in the extremely abridged version of one second, a ‘collapsed’ movie, leaving the viewer with a strong sense of resignation; and the suitcase dropped in the gallery room, is hiding the personal belongings of a person that we don’t know and that will always remain a stranger to us.
In her installations, performances, films and photographic work, Lara Favaretto is creating situations and specific atmospheres, which interact with the viewer’s memories and experiences and cause him or her to take part in the work on an emotional level. This may be in playful ways, as with the fun-fair caravan suspended from a crane and slowly floating by outside a museum window, or in quite brutal ways, as with a recent work of a rope made of her own hair, hanging from the ceiling and lashing out in all directions like a wild animal. She often appropriates the imagery of the vaudeville and the circus world or that of the gypsies, making use of their fantastical elements, visual richness, symbols, and legends. The gypsies, in their nomadic, ‘uneconomical’ way of life, represent the ultimate refusal of becoming absorbed by society’s everyday constructs and conventions, the last remnants of a lived utopia. Aiming at the possibility of living in a state of suspension, Lara Favaretto works towards a magic realism, in which the unconscious and the dreamlike proliferate in sometimes happy and sometimes sad encounters with the real.
For further information or images please contact the gallery.
opening: 24th November, 6 - 9 pm
duration of the exhibition: 25th November '06 until February 3rd '07
opening hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays 11am - 6 pm
COMINCIÒ CH’ERA FINITA
(IT BEGAN WHILE IT WAS ALREADY OVER)
Two years ago Lara Favaretto’s intervention 'Tutti giu per la terra!' surprised passers-by on the wintry Linienstrasse: through the gallery window they could see an installation made of one ton of confetti and four ventilators, the colourful paper cut-outs swirling around in the air in a wonderful wild carnival’s dance. Now we are very happy to announce the second solo exhibition of the Turin artist (b.1973) at the Zimmerstrasse gallery.
Cominciò ch’era finita is the main work lending its title to the exhibition: in the darkened gallery space a round wooden platform with textile walls and an iron pole is spinning around its own axis, reminiscent of both, a merry-go-round, a cinema theatre and a mobile war tent. It is turning at accelerated speed, as if there had been an electrical short circuit and the machine has gone crazy, making the barely lit inside almost invisible. The title, It Began While It Was Already Over, refers to the infinite cyclical movement of the spinning merry-go-round, a movement without a beginning or end, the futility of an action that exists for its own sake. Taken literally the title also expresses a feeling of sadness and frustration inherent in the exhibition - the melancholy of a missed encounter, and the nostalgic longing for a past event. The exhibited works all play out a deliberate denial of access to an insight or understanding: the merry-go-round is spinning so fast that the spectator’s gaze cannot fully grasp what’s inside the tent; a film that is originally 14 minutes long is shown in the extremely abridged version of one second, a ‘collapsed’ movie, leaving the viewer with a strong sense of resignation; and the suitcase dropped in the gallery room, is hiding the personal belongings of a person that we don’t know and that will always remain a stranger to us.
In her installations, performances, films and photographic work, Lara Favaretto is creating situations and specific atmospheres, which interact with the viewer’s memories and experiences and cause him or her to take part in the work on an emotional level. This may be in playful ways, as with the fun-fair caravan suspended from a crane and slowly floating by outside a museum window, or in quite brutal ways, as with a recent work of a rope made of her own hair, hanging from the ceiling and lashing out in all directions like a wild animal. She often appropriates the imagery of the vaudeville and the circus world or that of the gypsies, making use of their fantastical elements, visual richness, symbols, and legends. The gypsies, in their nomadic, ‘uneconomical’ way of life, represent the ultimate refusal of becoming absorbed by society’s everyday constructs and conventions, the last remnants of a lived utopia. Aiming at the possibility of living in a state of suspension, Lara Favaretto works towards a magic realism, in which the unconscious and the dreamlike proliferate in sometimes happy and sometimes sad encounters with the real.
For further information or images please contact the gallery.
opening: 24th November, 6 - 9 pm
duration of the exhibition: 25th November '06 until February 3rd '07
opening hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays 11am - 6 pm