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The Artist’s Body
Franko B’s performances are carefully directed and slickly stage managed pieces. Often the impression is one of high theatricality when reading reviews and articles about these performances, but these can be misleading. The atmosphere during B’s performances is described as contemplative, respectful, thoughtful and quiet. Franko B’s work uses his body, his blood explicitly, but the context in which his work is performed/seen is of extreme relevance to the way the work is read, placing it in both the social and political arena for discussion. B refuses to explain what his work is about “absence of program notes or of verbal texts is significant – words are denotative, they close down meaning; images remain open to multiple interpretations” (Campbell and Spackman, 1998, p.60). What we are presented with is a heavily tattooed and pierced naked body, sometimes painted white, and bleeding, sometimes in a wheelchair, restricted by leg callipers or attached to a catheter. The performance can take place in a gallery space or in marginalised urban public places. Where do we begin to read meaning into this work? The body as both socially and culturally constructed will always be open to and have complex meanings assigned to it. Campbell and Spackman (1998, p.57) state “there is no ‘naked,’ ‘natural’ body; the body, no less than language, is prescribed by culture” and they continue by quoting Barthes “even and especially for your own body, you are condemned to the repertoire of its images”.next >> |
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Copyright © Franko B 2007
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