WHAT TIME IS LOVE?

 As part of the Triennale Decameron, Anna Franceschini presents her video WHAT TIME IS LOVE?, shot at T.U.V.’s headquarters —  a company that issues European certificates of fitness for goods and services. Specifically, the Nuremberg offices specialise in testing toys and children’s products.

The video, a cross between documentary and fiction, follows the test process and becomes the making of itself, exploring the concept of “fitness” and asking what the price is to be accepted by a community.

Anna Franceschini mainly works with moving images, performances and films set in a universe that is often deserted, mechanised and made of infinite repetition and constant universal laws, such as gravity and attraction. Franceschini collects the illusory potential of moving images and uses it to animate the inanimate. To create this illusion she typically starts by isolating or framing a single object, device, machine or process; then she subjects it to the inquiring gaze of the camera until it takes a life of its own, and is freed from its functional destiny to become an object of poetic contemplation. However, the background around the subject never disappears completely; it remains visible to remind us that the progress of cinema goes hand in hand with industrial production and contemporary culture.

In 2019 she made the short film BUSTROFEDICO, a special project commissioned for the Italian Pavilion of the 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Her work has been presented at numerous film festivals including IFFR / Rotterdam Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, TFF/Torino Film Festival, MFF/Milano Film Festival, Courtisane Film Festival, Ghent. Among her solo exhibitions: Kunsthalle Sao Paulo; GAM, Turin; Kunstverein Dusseldorf; Spike Island, Bristol; Museion, Bolzano; Fiorucci Art Trust, London; MACRO, Rome; Institut Culturel Italien, Paris; Peep Hole, Milan; Bielefelder Kunstverein; Kiosk Gallery, Ghent; Objectif – Exhibitions, Antwerp; Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice. She has taken part in collective exhibitions in museums, galleries and international organisations, including: Witte de With, Rotterdam; CAC, Vilnius; Kunstraum, London; Quadriennale, Rome; The Breeder Gallery, Athens; Villa Croce, Genoa; Matadero, Madrid; MARCO, Vigo; MAXXI, Rome; Nomas Foundation, Rome; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; PAC, Milan; MACRO, Rome; Futura, Prague; Villa Medici – Rome (IT), Museo do Chiado, Lisbon. Her works are part of public and private collections, including: Musée National d’Art Moderne / Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; MACRO, Rome; Les Abattoires / Frac Midi Pyrénée; Nicoletta Fiorucci Collection, London. She was one of the winners of the Italian Council Grant in 2017. She is currently a PhD student in Visual and Media studies at IULM University in Milan.