BECAUSE OF LOVE - video



Extracts from the performances of BECAUSE OF LOVE at Laban Theatre, Norwich Arts Centre, Warwick Arts Centre and Toynbee Studios. Video by Nathaniel Walters.
For more information, visit franko-b-because-of-love.blogspot.co.uk.

FREEZE '13


<<The Mayor's Parlour>> presents... Freeze'13
The Mayor’s Parlour
Presents
Freeze’13

Selected artists show their work for this year’s exhibition during Frieze week in the East End of London.

Joseph Kosuth Mark Croxford Declan McMullan Peter Aston Jones Mat Collishaw Mike Andreae DNA Factory Kerry Ryan Nicholas Jones Floyd Varey Dan Coombs Pete Lamb Tracey Emin John Tiney Gavin Turk Tamsin Casswell Katrina Blannin Julien Brown John Close Covadonga Valdes Chris Daniels Giorgio Soddotti Gillian Westgate Paul Hosking Franko B Jessica Wilson Roland Fairburn Stefan Brüggemann Dan Coombs Polly Morgan Hester Finch Damien Good Lucie O’Mara Daniel Crews-Cubb

 Exhibition runs from 18th October to 1st November 2013

at The Mayor’s Parlour 1st Floor Bow House 153–159 Bow Road London E3 2SE

www.themayorsparlour.com 

 Opening Night Party Friday 18th October 6pm - late

SERIAL KILLER

SERIAL KILLER

Franko B
Thomas Qualmann

Curated by Tiziana d'Acchille

20th October - 30th November 2013

Private view 20th October, 16.00-20.00

Galleria Porta Latina
Via Latina 15A - 00179 Roma
06 77073098 - 349 5789425

info@galleriaportalatina.it

www.galleriaportalatina.it

BECAUSE OF LOVE - review

Because of Love Volume 1, Warwick Arts Centre, 6th October 2013
Laura Burns, This is Tomorrow >>>

A departure from his body-based work, Franko B's Because of Love delves from the political down to the personal, exploring memory and interrogating its narrative processes. As such, its own methods of recall become the subject of the performance itself.

 Video catapults the performance into archival memory with iconic images of war, political unrest, injustice and commodity culture, drawing the intersection of collective trauma, history's meta-narratives and the individual. Franko's body superimposes itself on the projected images as he runs along the stage-length screen. His actions are anonymous and depersonalized, unnervingly repetitious against the background of mass trauma. This is a piece about scale and distance. A small figure against a huge backdrop and the collective experience of hierarchies, power, dominance and aggression. The duality of this dynamic of oppressor and oppressed will be systematically broken down by the layering of Franko's gestures, movements, symbols, signs and eventually spoken narrative. Like lines criss-crossing between two points in time, a present and a past, these actions break the linearity and continuity of any promise of a coherent self.

Moving to a blackboard, Franko draws signs and words, gesturing to himself, the audience, the sign, but these gestures and symbols are disruptive rather than coherent. Franko's piercing yet silent engagement with the audience is both darkly humorous and tragically poignant. The combination of the writing and the silent communicating is elusive; we are being asked to order something, to piece it together, and yet it is intangible, just out of reach, another question of distance from the subject. Layers of gesture and action reflect the layering of meaning, as we are both piecing together an individual's narrative as well as observing a piece about the nature of communication itself. Just as the actions of the past are incomprehensible to a childlike figure trying to distinguish between wrong and right, justice and injustice, so the signs and actions throughout the piece fail to add up; this discrepancy is so prolonged and still it is almost dreamlike. But these black holes in communication are what the piece systematically works through, by ritual repetition that eventually unravels a thread of movement and a freedom of sorts.

 Franko constructs a world in which the individual's voice is silenced. The words 'See Say Something' seemingly directed to the audience highlight this silence, as we are unaware of what it is exactly we have seen, thus rendered voiceless like the performer himself. The implications are isolating, and Franko's performing self is acutely isolated within the framework of the stage, the distance (although penetrable) between audience and performer. Franko is both charismatically present, and also inaccessible, like the memories that are ever so slowly teased out of obscurity. The piece teeters on the edge of irony and humour, creating an uncanniness - particularly in the childish voice-overs - that avoids the realms of self-indulgence or sentimentality, thereby giving the performance a precision that is dynamic in its stillness. With the unravelling of dialogue comes the movement we have been longing, and the repetition is worked through until the regimented world of the performance is punctuated. The piece de resistance – a waltz with a polar bear – is the reward for this journey down into memory. The childlike interaction is both liberating and compellingly vulnerable; the combination of music and visuals paints a illusory world of the imagination, and we know that ultimately the freedom exists there and there only. A piece of clarity and subtlety that continues unravelling in the mind long after its physical enactment.

AT NIGHT WE CRY featuring Franko B

AT NIGHT WE CRY - Featuring Franko B, will support UK Decay at O2 Academy Islington, 16th November 2013 (doors open 6pm).
Get your tickets here!

Corps en Ouvre



















Corps en Oeuvre - exhibition at Coullaud & Koulinsky, Paris.

Preview on September 12, 2013 with a performance by Miet Warlop at 8 pm
Exhibition from September 12 to November 2, 2013

Franko B, Steven Cohen, Daniel Larrieu, Miet Warlop, Daniel Linehan, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Fiorenza Menini, Jan Fabre, Gina Pane.

www.coullaudkoulinsky.com

UK Decay Collaboration


killerNe Hope For The Dead

Franko b collaborated with UK Decay on the artwork for their new album, New Hope for the Dead, and their single, Killer / Heavy Metal Jews.

Read more about it here:
http://uk-decay.co.uk/uk-decay-franko-b-collaboration/#.UicptLRc55g
Franko b man-handles New Hope For The Dead!

CORPO E CRUDELTA - video


CORPO E CRUDELTA was a workshop curated by Franko B in association with Accademia di Belle Arti di Macerata, Italy.

3rd & 4th June 2013

Ron Athey, Francesca Alfano Miglietti (FAM), Rossella Ghezzi, Yann Marussich, Francesca Romana Nasce, Fabrizio Sibona, Adrien Sina, Ivana Spinelli, Giovanni Termini, Yesenia Trobbiani, Sarah Wilson.

BECAUSE OF LOVE Volume 1 - Review

Because of Love Volume 1 - Norwich Arts Centre - 18th May 2013

Franko B’s Because of Love is the closest encounter I have had with Joseph Conrad’s Colonel Kurtz to date. Like a seemingly disciplined inmate, the performer paces up and down along the celluloid wall of his recollection cell, readying himself for a confrontation to come rather than sparring with images of televised conflicts, military parades or 1960s adverts that numbingly rub our eyes. Franko B makes scant effort to blend with the projected images; he just goes on with his little exercise routine as the political and religious leaders of a not-too-distant world parade one after the other on the screen: protesters are endlessly being chased by the police, or little boys dutifully re-enact the Vietnam War with toy guns and cannons. [more >]

More reviews of Because of Love here >

Because of Love bag


Because of Love cotton bag, designed by Franko B 
LIMITED EDITION


Screen printed on high quality cotton, the bags have been produced to accompany the Because of Love tour.

£15 + VAT = £18
SOLD OUT !

UNTOUCHABLE



UNTOUCHABLE - 8th June 2013, 3 pm - 12.30 am - The Flying Dutchman, London.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/151277948344212

Performance, installation and music in support of Performance Space, London.

CORPO E CRUDELTA

CORPO E CRUDELTA

a workshop curated by Franko B in association with Accademia di Belle Arti di Macerata, Italy.

3rd & 4th June 2013

Ron Athey
Francesca Alfano Miglietti (FAM)
Rossella Ghezzi
Yann Marussich
Francesca Romana Nasce
Fabrizio Sibona
Adrien Sina
Ivana Spinelli
Giovanni Termini
Yesenia Trobbiani
Sarah Wilson

STEP WHACK STEP - Radio show includes review of Because of Love

Step Whack Step, Resonance 104.4 FM, 31st March 2013.
Review of Franko B's piece, BECAUSE OF LOVE Volume 1 starts at around 39:30.

Yourlisten.com - Upload Audio - Step Whack Step 29/03/13

Mark Carberry, Eleanor Sikorski and Else Tunemyr hosted the show on which they spoke about their visit to The Bride and the Bachelors at The Barbican Art Gallery, interviewed Jo Barratt about his obsession with smell and his work making scent for performance, and reviewed Because of Love volume 1 by Franko B.

Performance / Audience / Film

Performance / Audience / Film
26 March 2013 - 20 April 2013


John Hansard Gallery
University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ


Featuring Artists: Oreet Ashery, Franko B, Blast Theory, Ian Breakwell & Ron Geesin Jean Dupuy, Rachel Gomme, Dan Graham, Joshua Sofaer

Performance / Audience / Film aims to look at the different relationships that are established between the artist and the audience within the realm of performance art, examining the role of the audience in relation to the completion and meaning of the work. [more >]

Tel: +44 023 8059 2158
Email: info@hansardgallery.org.uk

Opening Times Tuesday to Friday 11am-5pm Saturday 11am-4pm
Free Admission

Garble Issue 9 - Franko B interview

Franko B in conversation with James Morgan.
Garble Issue 9, March 27th 2013
starts on page 20

BECAUSE OF LOVE Volume 1 - reviews

Two more reviews from the premiere performance of BECAUSE OF LOVE Volume 1 at The Place Theatre, London - 5th March 2013.

Honour Bayes, Total Theatre Review >>>
At first Franko B’s new work Because of Love – Volume 1 appears as resolutely non-theatrical as his previous offerings. Incorporating an uncompromisingly opaque mise-en-scene and sections of unblinking repetition that lead nowhere, it very politely puts both fingers up at the proscenium arch that surrounds it. Yet it also weaves a story through our subconscious through a highly crafted use of emotive projections, a rousing piano score, an animatronic dancing polar bear, a glitter ball, and the most effective use of Canidae heads since the bombastically theatrical Three Kingdoms. [more >]

Jareh Das, Aesthetica Magazine >>>
As you take your seat for Franko B’s latest performance, Because of Love Volume 1, it was hard to pre-empt what this evening was about to offer. An artist renowned for using his body and blood in performances, here, we are in a theatre waiting for his most ambitious production to date to commence, with a title that gives little indication of what to expect from the work. [more>]

For more information about the 2013-14 tour, visit franko-b-because-of-love.blogspot.com

FIL ROUGE - review and images

Ricucire la guerra, dorare la morte. Franko B da Antonio Marras Nel giardino segreto milanese di Nonostante Marras, fino al 7 aprile, i grandi ricami di Franko B sono il “Fil Rouge” che lega dramma e poesia. Tra libri, abiti e pasticcini, un ambiente accogliente per le opere e per il visitatore. Lontano dall’asetticità del white cube.
Franko B - Fil Rouge - veduta della mostra presso Nonostante Marras, Milano 2013
Franko B – Fil Rouge – veduta della mostra presso Nonostante Marras, Milano 2013 Nessuna performance cruenta, ma Franko B (Milano, 1960; vive a Londra) sa bene che il sangue può essere evocato senza essere rappresentato. Le grandi tele che trovano casa nel salotto incantato di Antonio Marras parlano di ferite, di guerra e di potere. Ricamate con doppio filo di cotone rosso, le giubbe ornate di medaglie divengono elemento identitario dei giovani soldati, estrapolati da conflitti diversi, sottratti alla guerra e portati alla tela. Non è più il corpo a essere trafitto, ma il tessuto bianco, su cui si sono cucite le sagome. La solitudine dei militari dai volti imberbi è sanata solo in Kiss n. 1, nell’intreccio di un bacio. Riproponendo e approfondendo una tipologia di lavori che era stata presentata nella retrospettiva al PAC del 2010, l’artista ha dorato oggetti e animali imbalsamati, memento mori efficaci, che ricordano come anche Re Mida abbia rischiato di morire di fame. Marta Cereda Milano // fino al 7 aprile 2013 Franko B – Fil Rouge a cura di Francesca Alfano Miglietti NONOSTANTE MARRAS Via Cola di Rienzo 8 02 89075001 
info@antoniomarras.it 

BECAUSE OF LOVE - reviews

Because of Love Volume 1 - The Place, London - 5th March 2013

Jessica Sabatini, Cloud Dance Festival >>>
There is no question of artist Franko B’s gift for generating live imagery of almost alchemical imagination. The conception and arrangement of Because of Love Volume 1 are striking in themselves; but it is the performance – in which he brings to bear his neutral, cohering presence and consummate, wordless candour – which finally endows this work with its uniquely moving qualities. [more >]

James Morgan, en de Horse >>>
This new work was emotional and shocking, but not at all in the way I had expected. Images were quieter and less charged than the nudity and blood-letting of his other works. I think the experience felt more deeply relatable and inclusive as a result. He was generous to the audience in a way which was profoundly different to what I can ever recall seeing on stage. [more >]

Eleanor Sikorski, Bellyflop Magazine >>>
When watching Because of Love volume 1, I am aware of the difference between the calm of my seated body and the noise of my mind. My perception of any performance, against my wishes, is always affected by how well or how little I know the artist/s involved. Watching Franko B on stage I observe that I hold great respect for him, not only because of what I am watching but because of what I allegedly know of him. I project qualities onto him – artistry, experience, intelligence, control.
[more >]

WISHFUL WEDNESDAYS - Talk at Chelsea Theatre

Chelsea Theatre has gathered some of the most interesting names in contemporary performance for a series of lectures all about hopes, dreams and predictions for future practice, and for the future itself.

13 Mar // Franko B
“I’m essentially a painter who also works in performance. I come from a visual art background and not “live art” or theatre, and this is very important to me as it informs the way my work is read.

http://www.chelseatheatre.org.uk/wishful-wednesdays/

FIL ROUGE - reviews

READING FRANKO B: MOMENTS IN LOVE


Reading Franko B: Moments in Love is an exhibition examining the contents of Live Art artist Franko B's archive.

The exhibition is a fragmented narrative of his creative and personal histories, asking: who is Franko B? What do we perceive about his identity through the archive? What relationships does this provoke between audience, document and artist? ... Why do we fall in love with him?

Curated by PhD researcher Cara Davies, in association with the Theatre Collection, the exhibition will showcase a diverse range of the documents in Franko’s archive, challenging what they embody and disseminate about his artistic practice and the contexts he works in.

This will be the Theatre Collection’s first ever exhibition from the Live Art Archives and in particular the Franko B archive. Franko's archive has been housed at the Theatre Collection since 2008, and hosts an extensive set of documents, which not only preserve official documentation of Franko’s performances/visual artworks/exhibitions, etc. (from the 1980s to 2008) but also documents of a bureaucratic nature, his personal life and the wider cultural/political context of the time they were created.

The Theatre Collection would be delighted if you could join us for Reading Franko B: Moments in Love. **** Please note though this exhibition contains material of a challenging nature. Under 18s may be permitted by prior arrangement only.

The exhibition is open:

Thursday 14th March to Friday 12th April 2013
(Closed Friday 29th March to Tues 2nd April)

Mondays: 12pm to 4pm
Tuesday to Friday: 10am to 4pm

Venue University of Bristol Theatre Collection, 21 Park Row, BS1 5LY

Admission Free, no booking required.

For further information
Email: theatre-collection@bristol.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)117 331 5086
www.bristol.ac.uk/theatre-collection/events.html 
www.franko-b.com 

This exhibition is part of Cara Davies' practice-led research PhD and is supported by the University of Bristol’s AHRC-funded project Performing Documents http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/research/performing-documents/

UNTOUCHABLE - CASA NOSTRA

UNTOUCHABLE casa nostra Sat 9th March 2013 2:00pm - 1:00am A platform for performance, installation, music and art events curated by Franko B in support of the Southwark LGBT Network. This is a free event but we will kindly ask for voluntary donations to support the Network.

The Flying Dutchman, 156 Wells Way Camberwell London SE5 7SY



(Re)Fresh

As a bonus event to the (Re)Fresh programme at Queen Mary on 21st February, the Live Art Development Agency will present (Re)Fresh Extra at the White Building in Hackney Wick on Saturday 23 February with Sheree Rose & Martin O’Brien, and Franko B & jamie lewis hadley. The legendary US performance artist Sheree Rose will present the first ever UK lecture about her extraordinary life and work, especially her collaborations with the late Bob Flanagan. The lecture will be followed by a in-conversation between Sheree and Martin O’Brien. (Re)Fresh Extra will also feature an ‘all live’ and expanded version of the new intergenerational dialogue performance by Franko B and jamie lewis hadley. (Re)Fresh Extra is a free event. There is a limited capacity and places will be available on a first come first in basis.

FIL ROUGE


FIL ROUGE - exhibition by Franko B, 18 Feb-7 Apr.
Nonostantemarras Via Cola di Rienzo 8, 20144 Milan, Italy
http://www.facebook.com/events/604470259578907/

This exhibition, entitled Fil Rouge, displays the works by the Milanese, London-based performance artist Franko B, important figure of reference for the body art of the 1990s. His intertwined cotton strings tell of war, the drama of soldiers and the loss of affection that accompany every armed conflict. Red and gold, the dominant colours of his canvases, emerge on the white surfaces. His work was originally based on blood and the rituals of the bodies’ violations. At the end of the 1990s his research moved towards a more multi-disciplinary inclination, such as video, sculpture, photography, painting and installation.

UNTOUCHABLE - The Musical

UNTOUCHABLE - The Musical
26th January 2013
at The Flying Dutchman, London
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/444441205604276/?fref=ts

A platform for performance, installation, music and art events curated by Franko B in support of the Southwark LGBT Network. This is a free event but we will kindly ask for voluntary donations to support the Network.

ARTISTS: Andrea Abbatangelo, Andro Andrex, Sarah Angelise Poetess, Kisito Assangni, Franko B, Alex Binnie, Vera Bremerton, Paride Calvia Patrizia Carlota, Liz Clarke, Patrick Courtney, Robert Crosse, David Pompili Davil,  Jessica and Antonio di Luca, Fidia Falaschetti, Nick Hudson, Ryan & Luke Jordan, Chloe Lawrence, Rui Miguel Leitao, Mancinelli Trobbiani, Piero ½botta, Ólöf Helga Helgadóttir, Cristiano Petrucci,  Jennifer Picken & Kimbal Quist Bumstead, Tom Qualmann, Mentalphotographic, Sharon Reeves, David Rickard, Priya Saujani,  Angelo Santonicola, Flavio Sciole, Samm Shackleton, Qasim Riza Shaheen, Lady Stubbs, Julie Tolentino, Ernesto Tomasini, Ali Zaidi, Desmond Zeederberg

DJs: Franko B, Dr. MU (Kaos)

The Mori + Stein Gallery @ The Flying Dutchman is an interdependent artist run venue. At the entrance guests will have the chance to give their contact information for future art events. The Flying Dutchman will pay £3 for each new guest signing up for the news letter. The money donated by the Flying Dutchman will be shared among the participating artists to refund the artists expenses and as allocated by Franko B.

A short video from the previous UNTOUCHABLE, December 2012:

UNTOUCHABLE - review

Review by Lisa Newman for Artillery.
UNTOUCHABLE was an exhibition and performance event curated by Franko B, November / December 2012.

Don't Touch Me There
Franko B's Performance Night at the Flying Dutchman

by Lisa Newman
LONDON REPORT
"Invoking Jonestown" by Nick Kilby, with sound by Llewyn Maire, photo by Lisa Newman
LOVE, LONGING AND PERFORMANCE art are best experienced in their natural habitats of dark venues on the edges of civilization. "UNTOUCHABLE," curated by Italian performance artist Franko B, proved just that in November at The Flying Dutchman pub in Camberwell, London with an evening of performances on the 17th. The event doubled as a fundraiser for the Southwark LGBT Network and a platform for new live and visual art pieces to be exhibited in an informal setting. The familial vibe, the constant presence of Franko's two Jack Russell terriers, and the unabashed evidence of sex club accoutrements throughout the venue—including purple walls and a series of pull points on the ceiling, walls and floor—eemed to invoke an openness in the audience to participate in some of the more intimate performances.
[... read the full article here >>>]