Lynch Tham, in collaboration with the Archivio Cavellini, is pleased to present Guglielmo Achille Cavellini, a survey exhibition covering two distinctive bodies of Cavellini’s works beginning 1966, when he started to devote himself entirely towards self-oriented artworks, to late 1970 when he became famous for autobiographical artistic endeavors associated with Autostoricizzazione (self-historicization). On view are two pivotal series: Crates with Destroyed Works (1966-1970), and From the Page of the Encyclopedia (from 1973). Crates with Destroyed Works are a collection of works Cavellini made by destroying the art he was creating and subsequently encasing them into crates. These works originated from an internal and emotional source, revealing an attitude brought about by a deep and obsessive self-search. The work encapsulated a strong sense of self-purging and annihilation as he would destroy his work for the sole purpose of re-creating a new ideal, a new form of work. From the Page of the Encyclopedia is a series of works originated from a theoretical and linguistic code Cavellini invented as a direct consequence of self- historicization. By the 1970s, Cavellini had adjusted his self-oriented works to autobiographical projects that expressed the idea of self-historicization. Starting from actual biography, Cavellini would expand his own life story to temporal hyperbolic appropriations. Fabric, objects, clothing and live people would become a direct canvas for Cavellini to “paint” his story. While Crates with Destroyed Works relate to issues of self-annihilation, From the Page of the Encyclopedia are text-based works that allowed Cavellini to insert himself into the past and future art history, thereby exploring the idea of self-expansion in these works.