The live stream will begin at 4 pm.
Lara Favaretto employs a variety of media to explore social, economic and cultural issues in our contemporary society, often with a degree of dark humour and irreverence. Thinking Head (2017–ongoing), originally commissioned for a solo exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, was developed into a three-part work in 2019 and presented in the Central Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale. Collectively, the three distinct elements mirror the functioning of the human brain as if it were a machine, a generator of thoughts. First, a selection of objects that the artist has collected over the past twenty-five years were displayed in the Central Pavilion. Second, a series of ‘clandestine talks’ on single-word subjects inspired by these objects took place. Finally, a vapour emitted from the roof of the Pavilion partially obscured its façade. The latter is a nod to Alighiero Boetti’s final sculpture Autoritratto (Mi Fuma Il Cervello) (1993–94), an electrically-heated bronze self-portrait in which the head literally fumes to suggest an overactive mind. Favaretto has said she wanted to turn a museum into a ‘thinking machine’. Furthermore, this intervention functions as a form of institutional critique, obscuring the institution’s architecture and dissolving its cultural authority from our view.
