VIENNA.- Kunstverein Gartenhaus presents Nights Out, Anna Franceschini’s first institutional solo exhibition in Vienna, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini and Ilaria Gianni.
In her practice, Anna Franceschini explores the multiple ways of displaying commodities. Underlying her observation of reality is cinema through its constituent elements: movement, light, framing, and editing. Performances, Xerox copies, kinetic sculptures, “bachelor(ette) machines” –which inject femininity into the Duchampian idea of apparatus–are for the artist “a cinema by other means.” Reversing the ends of the discussion about “cinema as machine,” she redirects the gaze toward the hypothesis of a “machine as cinema.” By creating sculptures intended as moving images, she turns commodities into quasi-living beings: devices whose subjectivity emerges only within a mise-en-scène.
Three dancing machines haunt Kunstverein Gartenhaus’ blacked-out space, activating an array of choreographies. Human presence is signified by flowing wigs, which move seductively, automatically, disturbingly, or even pathetically, in compliance with the engineered artifacts. Constructed as a theatrical body, Nights Out’s characters invite the public to consider how objects can take on meanings beyond the function for which they are designed. Following a sequence of incessant, repetitive, overwhelming, and weary gestures, Franceschini’s animated beings seem on the verge of becoming, constantly renegotiating their purpose. The sculptures appear as unsettling traces of a relentless drive for productivity that erodes both economic structures and interpersonal bonds. The exhibition becomes a stage where the existence of technical agents and the fictive flicker of life are equally expressed.
Nights Out unveils the effects woven by capitalism, in an everlasting spin between labor and desire. The sculptures call for a certain pressure to perform. Enhanced by a ferocious exuberance of movement, as much as an inevitable exhaustion, they lay bare that the spectacle presented by the artist is not a dreamscape, but a scenario we can relate to.
Nights Out at Kunstverein Gartenhaus is the first solo presentation of Anna Franceschini’s work in Austria. Premiering together with curated by, the gallery-led festival fostering international critical discourse, it can be visited during Vienna Contemporary (September 11-14, 2025), with curator-led tours available during its opening hours.
The publication Machines Wear Costumes, edited by Attilia Fattori Franchini and Ilaria Gianni, reflects on Franceschini’s oeuvre and will be published in 2025 by LENZ PRESS.
The project is supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Italian Council program (13th edition, 2024), which aims to promote Italian contemporary art worldwide.
Anna Franceschini (lives and works in Milan) works in a wide variety of media, including film, performance, kinetic sculpture, and photocopy. Her videos and films have been presented at numerous festivals, including the Locarno Film Festival, IFFR/Rotterdam Film Festival, TFF/Torino Film Festival, Courtisane in Ghent, Lo Schermo dell’Arte in Florence, the FIFA in Montréal, and the Vilnius Film Festival. Solo exhibitions and performances include: Villa D’Este, Tivoli (2025); Triennale, Milan (2023); Vistamare Milan/Pescara (2023, 2020, 2016); Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2022); Emanuela Campoli Gallery, Paris (2022); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2015); GAM, Turin (2015); Spike Island, Bristol (2014); Museion, Bolzano; Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2012); Fiorucci Art Trust, London (2014); Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice (2013); Peep Hole, Milan (2012); KIOSK, Ghent (2011); Almanac, London (2008). Among the venues of her most recent group shows: Tinguely Museum, Basel (2024); Mudam, Luxembourg (2023); MAXXI L’Aquila (2023); Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2022); Neuer Kunstverein, Vienna (2022); GAMeC, Bergamo (2022); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2022); Quadriennale d’Arte 2020, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2020); Kunstinstituut Melly (FKA Witte de With), Rotterdam (2020); MAXXI, Rome (2020); Fondazione ICA, Milan (2019); CAC, Vilnius (2017); Kunstraum, London (2017); MACRO, Rome (2016); Matadero, Madrid (2016); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2013); Les Abattoirs, Toulouse (2012); and Villa Medici, Rome (2012). She is a finalist for the Mario Merz Prize 2025. In 2022 she was one of the recipients of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and in 2019 she made the short film BUSTROFEDICO, a special project conceived as part of the Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte in Venice. In 2017 her project CARTABURRO was the winner of the Italian Council, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture. Her work is part of numerous public and private collections, including Centre Pompidou in Paris, Les Abattoirs in Toulouse, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Triennale Milano, MACRO in Rome, GAMeC in Bergamo, Fondazione Fiera Milano, MACTE in Termoli, Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, and Silvia Fiorucci Collection. She holds a PhD in Visual and Media Studies and teaches at NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan.
