Anna Franceschini
Nothing is more mysterious. A fact that is well explained

Italian-born artist Anna Franceschini (Pavia, 1979) considers her film Nothing is more mysterious. A fact that is well explained (16mm transferred to DVD, 2010) a personal reflection on the concept of indoor living, inspired by her stay in Holland.

The film presents the Amsterdam Pianola Museum and the delicate, private dimensions of its interior. Franceschini transposes the mechanism of the pianola (an automatic piano playing from scores on perforated paper scrolls) to one cinematic movement which is complemented by a second shot taking in the instruments and their environment. Recording not only took place in a limited space, but also within a self-imposed cinematographic framework. The artist limits herself to two long camera movements that meticulously explore the surfaces of the objects in the room. The way the camera draws the objects’ lines and textures recalls seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes; all attention is drawn towards the pictorial value, the texture of an old newspaper, the semitransparent glass or the high-polished shine of a piano, and the light that defines the presence of things. The filmic identity of the room is enhanced to an almost sculptural or pictorial level as a result.
The film can be read as a slowly unwinding visual memory, a recapitulation of art historical references; the film itself as an ‘object in motion’.

exhibition text / press release

Along with this exhibition, the showQuiet speech in wide circulation by Thea Djordjadze was also on view.