Beatrice Favaretto: Multiple Maniacs

Mare Karina is delighted to present Multiple Maniacs, the first solo exhibition of artist Beatrice Favaretto.

Beatrice Favaretto (Venice, 1992) is a visual artist working with moving images, complemented by performances and publications. Her artistic practice revolves around exploring themes such as sexuality, intimacy, the body, and societal taboos, often investigating the boundaries between public and private spheres. Favaretto draws inspiration from Italian culture of the 1970s, characterized by bold aesthetic and political experimentation, American trash cinema, and experimental film. She merges popular and alternative influences to create works that are both visually and conceptually provocative. A distinctive element of her work is its collaborative dimension: her creations emerge from interactions with a diverse network of individuals, including activists, sex workers, public figures, and sound technicians from the underground pornographic world.

The exhibition features the eponymous video work Multiple Maniacs, created as part of the Lydia Award for Contemporary Art, which Favaretto won in 2023. The project was realized with the support of Fondazione Il Lazzaretto, PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, MAMbo Bologna, and Studio F+B Design. Multiple Maniacs centers on Maximiliano Ulivieri (Livorno, 1970), an activist and founder of the LoveGiver committee, an organization advocating for the rights to sexuality and emotional intimacy for people with disabilities. Through close-up shots of what Ulivieri refers to as “the loneliest parts” – those marked by disability – interspersed with images of the artist’s body filmed by Ulivieri himself, the camera explores volumes and chiaroscuro in monochromatic red tones. Accompanied by a deep, resonant voice-over, the work unfolds by presenting bodies as objects of cannibalistic desire, taking viewers on an intense and at times violent journey within our own skin.

The installation dialogues with the radical aesthetics of the 1970 film of the same name by John Waters, which critiqued societal hypocrisies through grotesque and perverse imagery. “Multiple Maniacs really helped me exorcize Catholicism from my body,” Waters wrote, describing the film as an antidote to Hollywood’s America. Similarly, Favaretto’s work celebrates diversity and uses cannibalism as an extreme metaphor for consumption and moral violation, provoking reflection on pleasure, shame, and liberation—topics still challenging to address within the Italian cultural context.

The presentation at Mare Karina marks the first full exhibition of Multiple Maniacs following its preview at PAC in Milan, where the artist introduced the project with a performance alongside M¥SS KETA and a talk by Max Ulivieri.

Favaretto’s practice exists within an Italian landscape where moral conservatism coexists with a profound need for expression and profanity. The artist addresses themes of sexuality and vulnerability, constructing a language that challenges moral and cultural norms. In a country shaped by social and religious repression, Multiple Maniacs becomes an act of emancipation, inviting reflection on sexual freedom as a fundamental right and a tool for collective liberation.