Franko B feature on Art News (Rai Edu) - Broadcast in Italy on 16th December 2011.
http://www.artnews.rai.it/

Article by Maria Vittoria Berti for Exibart, published 20th December 2011:
FRANKO B - BECAUSE OF LOVE: L’ARTE SI FA CON IL FOUND RAISING


BECAUSE OF LOVE is a new multi-discplinary performance piece currently under development by Franko B. To find out more and support the project, please visit indiegogo.com/because-of-love.

The Saturday Arts Club podcast - 19th November 2011

Includes an interview with Richard Smith from Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster, who talks about Franko B's recent solo exhibition, SOMEONE TO LOVE.

Listen here (Richard Smith interview starts approximately half way through).

Art News (Italy) - April 2011

Review by Steph Hurst for Spoonfed:

I Still Love is Franko B’s first solo exhibition in London for seven years. His latest body of work at The Nunnery Gallery is a series of larger-than-life images stitched onto canvas with yarn. The Nunnery (actually a former nunnery, with the architectural interior to prove it) lives down a long alleyway of artist studios, lit by a constellation of dangling fluorescent lights. This bright, high-ceilinged space provides a good home for the, ahem, well-hung embroidered canvases.

The front gallery is quiet and blanched with a muted palette of bone-coloured cotton on unprimed canvas. The aesthetic is minimal and features portraits of torture alongside a bird and a blank canvas. The grouping of these images becomes an overture for the rest of the show.

The nave gallery introduces playful, erotic imagery. Twinkies kissing. A robin perched on a branch. A double hanging (as seen in the front gallery) is re-appropriated in bright red Egyptian cotton, accentuating the colour contrast. There is language in the sharp elbows of the bold contour lines—in the curves of two penises kissing. They almost seem to be moving.

The images are both appropriated and personal. “I don’t want to work with images that repulse me,” Franko says, “but with images that I can’t forget – that are ingrained in my memory.” I have seen some of this work in his studio – subjects projected onto canvas with an old-school overhead projector. He condenses the original images to produce flat, stylised renderings. Grouped with the occasional flower or bird, war and brutality comprise the majority of the images. Arranged together in one place, they seem to engage in conversation.

The back gallery is the noisiest – floor to ceiling with 22 square canvases including several military portraits, a triptych of Tom (and the rambling scar on his abdomen), a couple of hangings (the thick red noose and the negative space), and my personal favourite, the spectacular sprawling of barbed wire.

In a recent documentary of I Still Love at PAC Milan, Franko says, “I’m an artist who works with single images. When I choose which image to work with, I choose one that has touched me or that keeps my attention. This might be two cute boys kissing and I feel some emotion towards it, or a child who has just escaped and survived an attack on his school, which has killed most of the other children. To me, it has the same effect.” The results are eye-catching (and highly collectible).

Franko’s distinctive branding – where classical meets queer – appears in the exclusive use of red and white. He’s been tagged a New Romantic, and I Still Love doesn’t deviate, but evolves the artist’s multidisciplinary approach… in other words, it works.

Franko B – I Still Love is at the Nunnery until 5th June 2011.

Anarchy rules! But it's about a lot more than just lobbing things at police
(18th December 2010)

*il tratto principale del mio carattere... / *The main feature of my character ...
Impulsivo / impulsive

*la qualità che desidero in un uomo... / *The quality I want in a man ...
Un cuore grande / A Mighty Heart

*le qualità che preferisco in una donna... / * The qualities that I prefer in a woman ...
Un cuore grande / A Mighty Heart

*quel che apprezzo di più nei miei amici... / * That I appreciate most in my friends ...
La generosità / Generosity

*il mio principale difetto... / * My main fault ...

*la mia occupazione preferita... / * My favorite occupation ...
Essere me / Being me

*il mio sogno di felicità... / * My dream of happiness ...

*quale sarebbe per me la più grande disgrazia... / * What would be the greatest misfortune for me ...
Non ci voglio pensare / We do not want to think about it

*quel che vorrei essere... / * What I want to be ...
Mi va bene così / I'm happy with how I am

*il paese dove vorrei vivere... / A place where I'd like to live
Los Angeles / Los Angeles

*il colore che preferisco... / * My favorite colour ...
Il nero / Black

*l'uccello che preferisco... / * My favourite bird ...
Petti rosso / Robin

*i miei autori preferiti in prosa.. / * My favorite authors in prose ..
Samuel Beckett / Samuel Beckett

*i miei poeti preferiti... / * My favorite poets ...
Patty Smith / Patti Smith

*i miei eroi nella finzione... / * My heroes in fiction ...
Non ho eroi neanche nella finzione / I did not have heroes in fiction

*il mio gruppo musicale preferito / * My favorite band
Patty Smith / Patti Smith

*il mio regista preferito / My favorite director
Andrej Tarkovsky / Andrei Tarkovsky

*il mio film preferito / My favorite movie
Mirror di Andrej Tarkovsky / Mirror of Andrei Tarkovsky

*i miei pittori preferiti.. / * My favorite painters ..
Mark Rothko / Mark Rothko

*i miei eroi nella vita reale... / * My heroes in real life ...
Non ho eroi / I have no heroes

*le mie eroine nella storia... / * My heroines in history ...
Non ho eroine / I have no heroines

*i miei nomi preferiti... / * My favorite names ...
Tom e Marco / Tom and Marcus

*quel che detesto più di tutto... / * What I hate most of all ...
La mediocrazia / Mediocracy

*l'impresa militare che ammiro di più...& la riforma che apprezzo di più.... / * The military enterprise I admire most ... the reform & I like best ....
Non ammiro i militari. L’ aborto. / I do not admire the military. Abortion legislation.

*il dono di natura che vorrei avere.. / * The gift of nature that I have ..
Di non avere paura / Not to be afraid

*come vorrei morire... / * How I would like to die ...
Nel sonno / In sleep

*stato attuale del mio animo.. / * Current state of my mind ..
Tiepido / Warm

*le colpe che mi ispirano maggior indulgenza.. / * The sins in which you indulge yourself..
Non credo nei peccati / I do not believe in sin

*il mio motto... / * My motto ...
Eat, shit, fuck, die. / Eat, shit, fuck, die.

From D magazine (La Repubblica), 20th November 2010

L’ultima cosa che fa prima di dormire ? Do un bacio a mio marito .

Il suo rapporto con le droghe , o l’alcol ? Sono sposato , ne faccio

uso come diversivo .

Cosa le piace di più nel corpo di una donna ? Il sedere .

Cosa mangia a pranzo la domenica ? Piatti estremamente variabili .

Cosa la tiene sveglia la notte ? Mio marito , sempre lui .

Beauty : mai senza .... I tatuaggi .

Quanto conta il sesso nella vita ? Molto , ma dipende anche da dove

sei . E da quanto costa .

Fa sport ? Si , sport acquatici , quando capita .

Si reincarna in donna , la prima cosa che vorrebbe sperimentare ?

Gli uomini .

ى mai andato da uno psicanalista ? S … .

Cosa c’è sempre nel suo frigo ? il pollo . Per i cani .

Come si rilassa ? Con il valium .

Il senso più importante ? La vista .

Cosa non indosserebbe mai ? Preferisco non dire “mai” .

Se non facesse male , con cosa si consolerebbe ? Se mi fa bene , va

bene tutto .

FRANKO B , 50 anni , artista milanese . Fino al 28/11 al Pac di Milano c’è la

sua mostra “I Still Love” , curata da Francesca Alfano Miglietti . Vive a

Londra , dove si è affermato con progetti radicali . Le sue opere sono

anche alla Tate Modern , al Victoria and Albert Museum , al Modern Art

Museum di Tel Aviv . (on "D" di Repubblica)