War, violence, childhood in the exhibition by Franko B (Milan, 1960) entitled “No Gatekeepers of My Heart“, inaugurated in the context of the international photography festival in Turin, EXPOSED in Barriera in Milan.
By Sergey Kantsedal in collaboration with Katya Kabalina, the project presents a series of works by the artist created in recent years, with the exception of some resin works and photographs documenting his performances. Of more recent production we find stitched and painted canvases, installations, videos and neon.
Politics according to Franko B
As an independent artist, who chooses not to be represented by a gallery, in this exhibition – and on a daily basis – Franko B exposes himself without hesitation, taking strong positions even on political issues. Just like him, his works are a hymn to self-determination and the freedom of being and non-being, reflecting the experiences that have shaped his life and his gaze.
Through his personal story, made up of violence, underground life, childhood trauma, punk and queerness, Franko B drags us into the present by addressing issues such as discrimination, hardship, death, but also love and tenderness.
The article continues below
Franko B.’s childhood
The numerous works on display, born from an introspective and clearly autobiographical need, conceal a universal expressive force that hides among the nuances of iconic phrases and words in the artist’s work, such as “Love” and “I miss you”. Thus, the language of Franko B’s works opens up to the world, through a direct and powerful visual morphology as in the series of drawings on mirrors (2019-20) or in Object Wrapped (2023), a bicycle covered in canvases stained with the artist’s blood. Franko B transforms images, objects, words and sentences into real emotional declarations that recall that feeling of naivety and purity typical of childhood.
Among the installations in the exhibition stands out I am here (2024), a school desk inside which a screen has been installed that loops a violent flow of images stitched together, found on social media, blogs and newspapers. A visual collage that reflects the tragedies of our times: fragile dinghies overflowing with migrant people, cities battered by bombings, children injured in the rubble, violence, death.
War, children, Gaza: the artist witness to the present
Again from images found on blogs and social media, the artist created the series Here Comes the Rain (2024). With a red thread she sewed onto old nightgowns images of children with wounded faces, with a machine gun in their hands or crying in their mother’s arms, alternating with impactful words and phrases such as “Unloved” or “Bombing children is not self defense”. Thus, Franko B, witness to our present, forces us to confront the raw and merciless reality of the condition of children, victims of the violence of war with particular attention to what has been happening in recent months (and for years) in Palestine. His works, imbued with raw and powerful images, show us with distressing delicacy the brutality of the contemporary world, without filters or sweetening but without falling into a morbid and deviant representation: “It’s media pornography, showing pain and suffering, it’s the new pornography” explains the artist.
1 / 9
2 / 9
3 / 9
4 / 9
5 / 9
6 / 9
7 / 9
8 / 9
9 / 9
Talking about war with art
One of the central themes of the exhibition, and a constant in Franko B’s research, is the theme of childhood and the violence connected to it. We also find this in sculpture Sleeping Beauty (2017), a work in resin with silver chrome plating, created from a photograph of the body of a Syrian child, who drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Greece with his family.
Talking about politics and discrimination with art, without falling into rhetoric or appropriation, is a complex process; Franko B managed to talk about it with great respect and empathy, without sugarcoating the tragic nature of the imagery he evokes.
By manipulating some media images, he gave body, shape, space and time to tragic news photographs, which usually have an ephemeral and fleeting impact on the collective conscience.
In the card series Fuck (2024) – which opens or concludes the exhibition – Franko B challenges us to take a stand, to break away from convention and say “Fuck presidents”, “Fuck beretta shotgun”, “Fuck art collectors”, “Fuck the system”. In the hope that the convention will change and that those in positions of power and privilege will realize that the direction this society is taking is totally wrong, to quote Franko B, “Fuck everybody”, “Fuck Fuck Fuck.”
Marlene Luise Müller
Artribune is also on Whatsapp. Simply click here to subscribe to the channel and always be updated
