On Thursday 2nd June I went to Franko B's talk at the Nunnery, and saw his exhibition I Still Love. The curator for the show was Francesa A. Miglietti, author of Extreme Boides. Here are some great quotes I wrote done from his talk:
"... in the physical sense everything has a body"
"...I do images that I can't forget" (not that repulse me) He looks for an emotional reaction.
He said nudity for him is about exposure and 'mostrarse' (reflexive of reveal, to show oneself) which in the latin word is the same root as 'monstruo' (monster).
Talking of cultural practices being linked to identities he mentioned Spanish bullfighting.
Brought up in 60's and 70's, extreme catholic moment in Italy.
He compared British protestant culture to Spanish and Italian catholic culture.
Refering to his textile work, an exhibition of Men that Sow he saw, and the seamstress/designer gender differentiation.
Participated in ICA Rupture (1995) great performance festival.
The work for this exhibition sprung from a collaboration with a textiles Royal Academy student. It consists of bare canvases sown with red thread, what at first seems to be a reductionist visual language of paint. The colour of the canvas fabric perfectly remembers us of skin, as well as the images depicted. From pretty images of nature-a bird, flowers-to (homo)erotic and everyday scenes, and images of war, military and scarred bodies.
Images that move, images of bodies that trascend the passivity of the image because the process in which they are made is present. Piercing the skin of the canvas is present, just as the drawing is present. The RED thread and the NUDE canvas are present, waking us up to the corporeal reality and dimension of the issues depicted.
In my view, there is something performative about these pieces, in the sense that the body is present as an active creator of the piece, and recognised as a material entity that is alive and active. That's why we can say 'the canvases are bodies', because they are more than pictures of bodies.
In one of the walls there was a series of works that were done with off-white thread, the same colour as the canvas, reminded me of scars and the fact that Franko B's formula for these pieces (and whole body of work) are so successfull that less is also more. The bare canvas on the right top corner says everything all the others say, with its mere presence.
