Lara Favaretto
12 Jun - 30 Jul 2010
© Lara Favaretto
Homage to Bobby Fisher, 2010
installation made of earth, wood and brass,
containing one secret object sealed in an iron box
240 x 200 x 400 cm
Homage to Bobby Fisher, 2010
installation made of earth, wood and brass,
containing one secret object sealed in an iron box
240 x 200 x 400 cm
LARA FAVARETTO
"Out Of It"
June 12th - July 30th, 2010
Potsdamer Strasse 93
Gallery Klosterfelde is proud to announce a solo exhibition with new works by Lara Favaretto (born 1973, lives and works in Torino). Working on the production of perplexity and a sense of magical fantasy, the Italian artist uses equally sculpture, photography, film, installation and performances. Her investigations play around the ambivalence of aesthetic forms and concepts of negation, the durability of objects and the ephemeral nature of events.
Favaretto has developed a series of temporary public installations titled "Momentary Monuments". They are all based on the idea of destruction and disappearance. One project was a wall consisting of 36000 sandbags piled up around the statue of Dante Alighieri in Trento which after some time collapsed onto itself. Her contribution for the 2009 Venice Biennale was a temporary swamp in the garden outside of the Arsenale. The swamp was inspired by people who had withdrawn themselves from the public eye in order to protect their inventions, dreams, or their madness. Of her archive of biographical texts and images, Favaretto chose 20 stories of disappeared to whom she dedicated the entire project. Out came a metaphorical monument to this extreme form of transgression. It is about memorizing and honouring those who prefer an existence in a state of suspension to a life in a dogma of presence.
In Venice, some objects were buried in the swamp, like secret material tributes to the disappeared. The gallery exhibition is a continuation on this idea of the homage, equally playing on the tension between materialization and invisibility as apparent in cenotaphs. Two sculptures made of wood, brass and earth were conceived: the first is dedicated to Albert Dadas, a compulsive fugueur who spent his life traveling, unconsciously trying to escape his social identity, yet only partly remembering his trips when hypnotized later. "Homage to Albert Dadas" is taking up the whole floor of the first exhibition space. It is a flat surface made of earth, with a brass perimeter defining the size and scale of the volume. "Homage to Bobby Fisher" is a high and bulky wooden cuboid, almost blocking out the entrance to the other gallery room. It is dedicated to the infamous chess champion who refused to become exploited by the US government during the cold war and disappeared at the height of his success. The volume`s rear side is a large and shiny surface of brass throwing its reflection onto the wall, subtly highlighting the contradiction between the preciousness of the brass and the roughness of the wood.
The sculptures are the first two out of a planned series of 20, which will be spread around in many different locations, forming a new, imaginary map in memory of the disappeared. An almost immaterial suggestion of a person is the golden whistle hanging from the ceiling in the exhibition space. Engraved are the initials of Ettore Majorana, the Italian physicist who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, possibly in the moment when he realized his inventions would result in the construction of the nuclear bomb. Favaretto has collected all the stories of the disappeared in a beautiful artist book published by Archive Books on the occasion of the exhibition.
"Out Of It"
June 12th - July 30th, 2010
Potsdamer Strasse 93
Gallery Klosterfelde is proud to announce a solo exhibition with new works by Lara Favaretto (born 1973, lives and works in Torino). Working on the production of perplexity and a sense of magical fantasy, the Italian artist uses equally sculpture, photography, film, installation and performances. Her investigations play around the ambivalence of aesthetic forms and concepts of negation, the durability of objects and the ephemeral nature of events.
Favaretto has developed a series of temporary public installations titled "Momentary Monuments". They are all based on the idea of destruction and disappearance. One project was a wall consisting of 36000 sandbags piled up around the statue of Dante Alighieri in Trento which after some time collapsed onto itself. Her contribution for the 2009 Venice Biennale was a temporary swamp in the garden outside of the Arsenale. The swamp was inspired by people who had withdrawn themselves from the public eye in order to protect their inventions, dreams, or their madness. Of her archive of biographical texts and images, Favaretto chose 20 stories of disappeared to whom she dedicated the entire project. Out came a metaphorical monument to this extreme form of transgression. It is about memorizing and honouring those who prefer an existence in a state of suspension to a life in a dogma of presence.
In Venice, some objects were buried in the swamp, like secret material tributes to the disappeared. The gallery exhibition is a continuation on this idea of the homage, equally playing on the tension between materialization and invisibility as apparent in cenotaphs. Two sculptures made of wood, brass and earth were conceived: the first is dedicated to Albert Dadas, a compulsive fugueur who spent his life traveling, unconsciously trying to escape his social identity, yet only partly remembering his trips when hypnotized later. "Homage to Albert Dadas" is taking up the whole floor of the first exhibition space. It is a flat surface made of earth, with a brass perimeter defining the size and scale of the volume. "Homage to Bobby Fisher" is a high and bulky wooden cuboid, almost blocking out the entrance to the other gallery room. It is dedicated to the infamous chess champion who refused to become exploited by the US government during the cold war and disappeared at the height of his success. The volume`s rear side is a large and shiny surface of brass throwing its reflection onto the wall, subtly highlighting the contradiction between the preciousness of the brass and the roughness of the wood.
The sculptures are the first two out of a planned series of 20, which will be spread around in many different locations, forming a new, imaginary map in memory of the disappeared. An almost immaterial suggestion of a person is the golden whistle hanging from the ceiling in the exhibition space. Engraved are the initials of Ettore Majorana, the Italian physicist who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, possibly in the moment when he realized his inventions would result in the construction of the nuclear bomb. Favaretto has collected all the stories of the disappeared in a beautiful artist book published by Archive Books on the occasion of the exhibition.