I'M THINKING OF YOU - performance in Sopot


Franko B will perform I'M THINKING OF YOU at
Państwowa Galeria Sztuki, Sopot, Poland on 12th January 2017.

(part of 'Bipolar VI International Meeting of Performers in Sopot')

More information here >









I'M THINKING OF YOU - performance in Vienna


Franko B will perform I'M THINKING OF YOU at Tanzquartier Wien Centre for Contemporary Choreography and Performance on 25th January 2017.

More information here >

'Supported by music from composer Helen Ottaway, Franko B creates a surreal dream setting in the performance I’m Thinking of You. While the naked body plays a central role as in all the Italian choreographer’s performances, in this piece it is also the theatrical presentation of objects and music that takes the audience on a contemplative journey. I’m Thinking of You conceives a romantic utopia of child-like imagination and carefreeness. A toy from Franko B’s childhood served as inspiration for this piece, and he has turned it into a sculpture for the performance.'



MILK & BLOOD - performance in London


Franko B will perform MILK & BLOOD for the final time on 16th March 2018 at Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6AB

More information and tickets here >

Appropriating the aesthetics of boxing, Milk + Blood is an exercise in mental and physical endurance. Exploring themes of pain, eroticism, revulsion, ecstasy and masculinity, the performance becomes a metaphor for social struggle and resilience.

Using the democratic tool of his own body, this performance touches on the personal, political and poetic, as Franko revisits themes of his previous work. 

Milk will bleed.


FRANKO B CERAMICS OPEN STUDIO SALE



FRANKO B CERAMICS OPEN STUDIO SALE - See new Franko B works in ceramics. Limited edition series of objects / sculpture available to buy at affordable prices.

12th December 2017, 3:00 - 9:00 pm

Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6AB


facebook.com/events/803480713156038/



HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! - video



HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! - an exhibition of works from the a/political collection curated by Franko B at Rua Red, Dublin, 7th October - 2nd December 2017. www.ruared.ie

Video by Nathaniel Walters


BECAUSE OF LOVE: A FILM ABOUT FRANKO B - screening in Turin



BECAUSE OF LOVE: A Film About Franko B by Nathaniel Walters

Screening at Comodo64, Via Bologna 92A, Torino - 3rd November 2017

facebook.com/events/124853184845272/


HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR FAMILY, THE CHURCH AND THE STATE - workshop in Dublin

15 Nov - 17 Nov 2017
Rua Red, Dublin

How to survive your family, the church and the state and make the work that matters to you.

A workshop with artist and curator Franko B.

Join the artist and curator of the exhibition HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! for an energetic and dynamic workshop. Over the three days you will go through various exercises with Franko B. This workshop offers an insight to Franko’s practice and exposes you to an existing contemporary art practice. Franko B’s practice spans drawing, installation, performance and sculpture. Over the years he has built up a diverse and sizable body of work and has gained international acclaim for his contribution to contemporary art.

If you would like to book a place on this workshop email no more than 20 words an explanation on why you would like to take part to Lorna at lkavanagh@ruared.ie. Deadline: 31 Oct 2017

http://www.ruared.ie/whats-on/event/the-personal-the-political-and-the-poetic


EAT SHIT FUCK DIE - limited edition jewellery range


EAT SHIT FUCK DIE - a limited edition unisex jewellery range designed by Franko B in collaboration with jewellery maker Mayu Iwakami (iLiLiP).

Chain: Stainless steel Cuban link chain (edition of 50). Laser engraved 'EAT SHIT FUCK DIE' on four 2mm thick dog tags, joined with a chunky stainless steel chain with a big pair lobster clasp. Can be worn as a necklace or a trouser chain.

Cross Ring: Heavyweight signet ring (edition of 50). Engraved 'EAT SHIT FUCK DIE' with a small cross in the middle. 25 gram silver 925.

Skull Ring: Heavyweight signet ring (edition of 50). Engraved 'EAT SHIT FUCK DIE' with a small skull in the middle. 25 gram silver 925.


HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! - trailer



HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS!
An exhibition of works from the a/political collection curated by Franko B at Rua Red, Dublin.
7th October - 2nd December 2017

ruared.ie/event/how-to-say-it-the-way-it-is/all



HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! - publicity materials


HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS
Selected works from the a/political collection curated by Franko B

7th October - 2nd November 2017, Rua Red, Dublin
http://ruared.ie/event/how-to-say-it-the-way-it-is/all

Artists: Franko B, Petr Davydtchenko, Democracia, Kendell Geers, Leon Golub, John Heartfield, IRWIN, Peter Kennard, kennardphillips, Barbara Kruger, Oleg Kulik, Andrei Molodkin, Gustav Metzger, Shirin Neshat, Arsen Savadov, Andres Serrano, Santiago Sierra, Ai Weiwei



View press release >















HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! - press article


Truncheons, pistols and KKK to feature in ‘socio-political’ show organised by Franko B

(article by Gareth Harris for The Art Newspaper, August 2017 >)

Performance artist's Dublin exhibition will include works by Santiago Sierra, Shirin Neshat and Andres Serrano

"A selection of works commissioned and collected by a/political—a London-based non-profit that collaborates with “socio-political” artists—will go on show this autumn in an exhibition in Ireland. The exhibition, titled How to Say It the Way It Is!, is due to open at the Rua Red gallery in south Dublin (7 October-2 December) […>]"


Full article: http://theartnewspaper.com/news/news/truncheons-pistols-and-kkk-to-feature-in-socio-political-show-organised-by-franko-b/


HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS!

An exhibition of works from the a/political collection curated by Franko B.

Rua Red, Dublin

Opens 7th October 2017

Exhibition continues until 2nd December 2017

More details coming soon

ruared.ie/event/rua-red-partnership-apolitical/2017-08-27
















BLOOD COUNTS - screening programme


LADA is curating Blood Counts, a programme of events exploring blood in performance for BLOOD: Life Uncut, a season of work for the new Science Gallery, London.

Looking at blood as a signifier of identity and being, as a marker of fragility and illness, as a form of protest and resistance, as a manifestation of bodily functions, and as a test of the limits of the body, Blood Counts includes an evening of presentations, provocations and discussions around the aesthetics, ethics, biomedical and cultural contexts of blood and performance at Guy's Chapel, Kings College, and a screening of short films and documentation of key performance works involving blood at the Copeland Gallery in Peckham.

Friday 13 October at 7pm Guy's Chapel
The evening includes a keynote presentation on blood in art by Dr Dominic Johnson, a performance of Passion/Flower by Ernst Fischer & Nicola Hunter, and contributions from the artists Marisa Carnesky and jamie lewis hadley.

Saturday 14 October at 7pm Copeland Gallery
The screening programme includes short films and documentation of performance works by Franko B, Marisa Carnesky, Ron Athey, Kira O'Reilly, Regina Jose Galindo, La Ribot, Martin O'Brien, jamie lewis hadley, Ernst Fischer & Nicola Hunter, and Rocio Boliver.

More information / tickets: thisisliveart.co.uk/whats-on/blood-counts/



FRANKO B ARTIST TALK - Freud Museum, London

25th June 2017, 2pm
Freud Museum, 20 Maresfield Gardens, London, NW3 5SX
Free with admission (£8 / £6 / £4) - no need to book
https://www.freud.org.uk/events/76905/artists-talk-franko-b/

On the occasion of Refugee Week 2017, The Freud Museum London is delighted to host contemporary artist Franko B who will be discussing his installations in the museum, SLEEPING BEAUTY & Still Life, in relation to his ongoing series Childhood in Distress. This body of work resonates deeply with Franko B’s personal biography, who as a child was an orphan in the Italian care system and later came to London after a prolonged period of homelessness in his native Italy, they commonly depict the suffering of innocent youths from a variety of global contexts drawn from Franko B’s exhaustive visual research.



FRANKO B: LOVE LETTERS - photographs and reviews

Exhibition of Franko B's work from the collection of Galleria Pack, showing at Palazzo Sant'Elia, Palermo until 9th July 2017. 

Reviews: 
Franko B. Un nuovo Marsia a Palermo > (Marcello Faletra, Artribune, June 2017)
Franko B: Love Letters in Palermo > (Virginia Glorioso, Urban Mirrors, June 2017)

Interview:
Sicilia Queer 2017: Franko B >






FRANKO B IN CONVERSATION WITH SARAH WILSON - podcast

Recording of Franko B's conversation with Sarah Wilson at the Freud Museum, London, at the opening of the exhibition of his sculpture SLEEPING BEAUTY and photographic series, STILL LIFE - showing until 16th July 2016.

podcast.freud.org.uk/e/sleeping-beauty-franko-b-in-conversation-with-sarah-wilson/



SLEEPING BEAUTY - photographs from the Freud Museum


Franko B's recent sculpture, SLEEPING BEAUTY (Carrara marble, 2016), and a re-imagined version of his photographic series, STILL LIFE (1999-2002) are now showing at The Freud Museum (London) until 16th July 2017, featuring alongside the exhibition 'Best Possible School: Anna Freud, Dorothy Tiffany Birlingham and the Hietzing School in 1920's Vienna', coinciding with Refugee Week 2017.

freud.org.uk/exhibitions/76839/sleeping-beauty





SICILIA QUEER 2017 - exhibition and screening



Franko B will be participating in Sicilia Queer Film Fest  2017 (Palermo) with an exhibition of his work from the collection of Galleria Pack (LOVE LETTERS), and a screening of BECAUSE OF LOVE - a film about his life and work by Nathaniel Walters.

Exhibition: LOVE LETTERS
curated by Antonio Leone and Paola Nicita for Sicilia Queer 2017
26th May - 9th July 2017
Palazzo Sant'Elia, Palermo

Screening: BECAUSE OF LOVE
25th May 2017, 1830
Cinema de Seta, Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa

siciliaqueerfilmfest.it/






Gefur listinni blóð - radio interview

Franko B interviewed by Halla Þórlaug Óskarsdóttir for Víðsjá about his workshop Time Space Nothing at the University of Reykjavík (Spring 2017).

Listen here >



http://www.ruv.is/frett/gefur-listinni-blod




SLEEPING BEAUTY - showing at the Freud Museum

10 May 2017 - 16 July 2017
Franko B Sleeping Beauty 

Plus: 16th May, 18:45
Franko B in Conversation with Sarah Wilson

freud.org.uk/exhibitions/76839/sleeping-beauty/

The Freud Museum is delighted to announce the exhibition of a new sculpture, Sleeping Beauty, by internationally renowned contemporary artist Franko B, coinciding with Refugee Week 2017 and our latest exhibition, The Best Possible School: Anna Freud, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham and the Hietzing School in 1920s Vienna. The Museum will also display pieces from Franko B’s series Still Life, in which the artist documented homelessness on the streets of London between 1999 and 2002. The photographs reflect upon the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and reference Franko B’s personal biography.

 Sleeping Beauty is a sculpture of a deceased refugee child, presumed to be from Syria, hand carved in marble using traditional methods in the style of Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Like Bernini, Franko B's practice is engaged with an aesthetic dialogue between the sacred and profane. However, in Franko B’s latest sculpture, the sacred is found in the figure of the child rendered eternally in marble and the profane within ourselves, our leaders, our states and institutions - crystallised in our collective failure to address the worst human crisis since the Second World War.

More information >




FRANKO B: interview

ARTE VUOL DIRE MOSTRARE BELLEZZA

- Franko B interviewed by Penzo & Fiore at Venice International Performance Art Week (December 2016) for exibart.com (published 31st March 2017)

http://www.exibart.com/notizia.asp?IDNotizia=52800&IDCategoria=1





MILK & BLOOD - interview from Backlit, Nottingham



Interview / documentation of Franko B's performance, MILK & BLOOD at Backlit, Nottingham on 10th March 2017.
A film by Timothy Chesney.



THE GOLDEN AGE - currently showing in Spoleto


The Golden Age (2007)
series of paintings by Franko B
acrylic on canvas, 150x180cm (x10)

Currently showing at CORTESIE PER GLI OSPITI - Group exhibition curated by Luigi De Ambrogi at  Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive, Spoleto (Perugia), Italy until 2nd May 2017.

(more BLACK PAINTINGS >)



OUCH - PAIN AND PERFORMANCE - screening in Ljubljana


OUCH - PAIN AND PERFORMANCE

Wed Mar 15 2017, 07:00 pm
Aksioma, Komenskega 18, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Screening programme curated by Live Art Development Agency, London with an introduction by Dr. Dominic Johnson, Reader in Performance and Visual Culture in the School of English and Drama, at Queen Mary, University of London.

Ouch is a collection of documentation and artists’ films looking at pain and performance – both the pain artists cause themselves within the course of their work, whether intentional or not, and the experiences of audiences as they are invited to inflict pain on artists or are subjected to pain and discomfort themselves. 

The selected works feature eminent and ground breaking artists from around the world: Marina Abramović, ORLAN, Oleg Kulik, Ron Athey, Franko B, Marcel.li Antunez Roca, Heather Cassils, Bob Flanagan, Wafaa Bilal, Rocio Boliver, Petr Pavlensky, Martin O’Brien, Regina Jose Galindo, Ernst Fisher & Nicola Hunter, Kira O’Reilly, jamie lewis hadley.

More information: http://aksioma.org/ouch



CORTESIE PER GLI OSPITI - group exhibition

CORTESIE PER GLI OSPITI
Un Gallerista la sua Visione
Un Progetto Espositivo
Giampaolo Abbondio
Galleria Pack

Group exhibition curated by Luigi De Ambrogi

4th March - 12th May 2017

Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive, Spoleto (Perugia), Italy

Admission €6.50 / €4.00

www.palazzocollicola.it
info@palazzocollicola.it
facebook.com/PALAZZOCOLLICOLA

www.rivistasegno.eu/events/un-gallerista-la-sua-visione-un-progetto-espositivo/

Artists: Matteo Basilé, Peter Belyi, Simone Bergantini, Edo Bertoglio, Yannis Bournias, Marìa Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pablo Candiloro, Ofri Cnaani, Gianni Colosimo, Nicola Di Caprio, Alberto Di Fabio, Franko B, Robert Gligorov, Fathi Hassan, Debora Hirsch, Zhang Huan, Oleg Kulik, Miltos Manetas, Masbedo, Jason Middlebrook, Bartolomeo Migliore, Andrei Molodkin, Marco Neri, Marina Paris, Giuseppe Pietroniro, Andres Serrano, Robert W. O. Stone, Wainer Vaccari.



OPEN CALL: DEATH & ROMANCE 2017 - a workshop with Franko B

image: from Death & Romance (2016)
Franko B's workshop, DEATH & ROMANCE returns to Trevi for its second edition in Summer 2017.

DEATH & ROMANCE 2017: A journey through the personal, political and poetic: A workshop with Franko B

International workshop in performance art presented by Palazzo Lucarini Contemprary - Centre for Contemporary Art (Trevi), directed by Maurizio Coccia, co-ordinated by Mara Predicatori.

Location: Trevi (PG), Italy
Date: 23rd August - 2nd September 2017

Description: The project aims to bring together the radical performative experience of the renowned international artist Franko B within the habitat of Trevi. We envisage a new meeting place for developing themes and personal techniques. The rural setting and the bucolic ambience will be the setting for an extremely rigorous training programme based on strong methodological soundness. At the end of the course, participants will present publicly the results of the workshop within the Centre of Contemporaray Art “Palazzo Lucarini”. The materials produced during the workshop will be on display until october 1.

Minimum number of participants: 16
Maximum: 20

Residence: food and lodging for 10 days is provided. Board in rustic building with panoramic views of the Umbrian Valley. Dormitory accommodation.

Applications: Candidates must send their application, comprising their CV, a personal statement about why they want to participate in the workshop (up to 150 words), and a portfolio of 4-6 images and/or links to 1-2 short videos of their recent works to frankobartist@yahoo.co.uk and info@palazzolucarini.it.

Deadline for applications: 21st May 2017.

Cost: €650 per person. Includes registration fees, materials, accommodation and meals.

Participation in the workshop includes authorisation for full use by the organisation of all graphics, audio, video and photographic materials produced during the course, for all future publications,(paper and/or digital).


MILK & BLOOD - performance in Nottingham

Franko B will perform MILK & BLOOD at Backlit Gallery, Nottingham on Friday 10th March 2017, 19:30.
Tickets: backlit.org.uk

For more information about the performance, see franko-b.com/milk_and_blood.html

Plus: Breakfast with Franko B - Join Franko B and the teams from Backlit and Dance4 for breakfast to discuss Franko's work and the challenges of making and presenting performance work in the 21st century - Saturday 11th March, 10:00-11:30 am, Backlit Gallery, Alfred House, Nottingham.
Tickets: dance4.co.uk/about/project/nottdance-2017/event/nottdance/2017-03-11/breakfast-franko-b-uk