Franko B is a performance artist who we were all very interested in, below our responses to his work.
Demi Morrison’s Response:
Continuing on from the question ‘how to make the audience feel uncomfortable?’ in my first post, I have looked at a performance artist, Franko B, who creates work that can make the spectator feel uncomfortable. The one piece of his that sticks in my mind it titled I Miss You (2003) and if you scroll down, you can watch the video.
Franko B violates his own body in this piece, cutting himself and walking along a catwalk bleeding onto the stage. To me the idea that an audience would be prepared to watch this and not offer assistance as a man is bleeding before their eyes was inhumane. However, after watching the performance, I will admit that I was captivated and drawn in. I can only imagine how powerful this feeling is when watching him live.
“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. In the last 20 years or so I have developed ways of working to suit my need at that particular time, in terms of strategy and context, by using, installation, sculpture, video and sound.” (Franko B, 2008)
This highlights why this artist is the person he is today and why he creates the art he does. Not only has he developed a style of working, he also has a cause. His work is also a way for him to explore the politics behind performance. It is evident that this artist uses his life experience as his inspiration, or so I believe, and this is somebody I endeavor to aspire to.
The idea of a performance body artist is one that appeals to me. Essentially, I would like to create a piece of CEP that uses the body in a certain way to assist in answering the key questions posed by the performance.
Jessica Smith’s Response:
While doing research for this module I discovered an artist called Franko B. When I first heard about his I Miss You piece I felt truly disgusted. I did not understand how somebody cutting their wrists and walking up and down a catwalk, while blood dripped onto it, could be considered as a performance. However, after viewing I Miss You I came to understand that a performance is not just what the artist does, but how they frame their work. The way in which a performance is staged gives a greater effect. This performance starts off in blackness and as the lights flicker on, the audience, sat either side of the catwalk, can see a naked man painted white. Everything that he does adds to the artistic content. From the way, in which he walks, to the way that the light, reflected onto his white figure, makes him seem as though he is in a negative picture format (the setting on a camera). In a review, Elizabeth Schwyzer analyses his piece:
Using his body as his canvas and likening his blood to oil paint, the Italian-born artist has honed his ability to evoke deep emotional, psychological, and physiological responses in his viewers. Though he’s best known for bleeding in public, B’s primary interest is in making an immediate impact on his audience. (Schwyzer, 2007)
Leanne McKetterick’s Response:
Through our first seminars of this module, I have now come to an understanding of the idea that anything can be a performance. But what challenged me now, was the notion of what is it that makes whatever we see or are watching, a performance?
In this book The Empty Space, Peter Brook states, “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged” (2008, p.11). What Brook suggests here, is that by giving something the frame of ‘this is theatre’; is what contextualises it.
Imagine walking down the street and seeing a man naked with his wrists cut and his blood dripping on to the pavement. What would you do? Most people would probably try to help him and call an ambulance. Yet, many people pay money to see the artist Franko B do the exact same thing and simply just stand and watch. This is purely because of the context in which the man’s act is in.
This idea of context interests me a lot when it comes to our performance. I’m interested in exploring how putting something in the context of being on the stage or in front of an audience can change how we and the audience perceive it.
Works Cited
Brooks, Peter (2008) The Empty Space. Penguin Books Ltd: London
Franko B, 2008, The Franko B Archive. Online: http://www.bris.ac.uk/theatrecollection/liveart/liveart_FrankoB.html> (accessed on 14th October 2012)
Schwyzer, Elizabeth (2007) Santa Barbara Independent: I Am the Medium Brings Live Art to UCSB, Online: http://www.independent.com/news/2007/oct/25/emi-am-mediumem-brings-live-art-ucsb/(accessed on 14 October 2012)
