Vyacheslav Akhunov: Instruments of the Mind

Instruments of the Mind presents a landmark survey of Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov at Palazzo Franchetti, tracing over five decades of practice. Organized by the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent, the exhibition brings together rarely seen works from the 1970s alongside recent pieces, unfolding a sustained reflection on memory, time, and spiritual consciousness.

Working within a conceptual framework, Akhunov transforms everyday situations, chance encounters, and moments of irony into reflections on how thought processes construct reality. The exhibition foregrounds the mind’s role in connecting, interpreting, and reconfiguring experience, positioning cognition itself as a medium. Through subtle and often humorous gestures, Akhunov’s works invite viewers to reconsider how meaning is formed, shifting attention from the external world to the mechanisms through which it is understood.