Lara Favaretto: Collected Works

The first Canadian solo exhibition by Italian artist Lara Favaretto (b.1973, Treviso) will be held from the 30th of May in Vancouver, hosted by the Rennie Collection.

Through her installations of mundane objects, Favaretto’s art practice explores the absurdities of modern life, consumer culture, and obsolescence. Her large-scale installations and interventions will find new meaning in the historic Wing Sang building.

Coppie Semplici denies the colourful car wash brushes that make up the work of their natural environment to let them whirl around in an alien landscape. Stripped of their intended function, the brushes whirl aimlessly into decay. The mechanic nature of Favaretto’s installations speaks to the monotony and repetition of human life, prompting the audience to contemplate themselves and the function of these objects in their lives deeper. Much of Favaretto’s work functions through the juxtaposition of binary opposites. The colourful, celebratory visual language present in her work is thwarted by the dull nature of its subject matter. This multilayered approach exerts itself to spectacular effect with Tutti giu per terra. Sealed in a room with four fans, rainbow-coloured confetti eddies and swirls as it falls to the ground. The isolated character of the installation emphasizes the fine line between aspiration and failure- the spectacle evolving through time into colourful exhaustion. Elsewhere, the single compressed air tank of Twistle is timed to intermittently inflate a party favour; counting down to yet another celebration, the pressure builds both literally and figuratively. The impending celebration is never achieved when it is revealed that the trumpet is silent. Resilience prevails as the pressure regulator starts all over again.

The theme of memory is captured in the ephemeral nature of Favaretto’s other works. Using the most fleeting and unlikely of objects such as a lost luggage in Lost & Found or a found painting in 225, the artist creates what she refers to as “momentary monuments”. These objects, once doomed to vanish are then preserved, repurposed, and transformed into a monument of disappearance themselves.

51 East Pender Street, BC V6A 1S9, Vancouver
By appointment only