Franko B

Italian performance artist based in London since 1979 (b. 1960, Milan).

I MISS YOU (1999–2005)

Franko B appears naked, painted white from head to toe, walking a canvas catwalk while blood flows from cannulas in both arms. The fashion-show format is detourned into a bleeding ritual; the stained canvas is later cut into objects / sculptures.

Jennifer Doyle (2006) cites Franko B alongside Athey, La Ribot and Abramović as a figure of contemporary live art.

RELEVANCE TO CLARISSE'S RESEARCH

The catwalk becomes the site of sacrifice rather than glamour. This is directly relevant to the FASHION aside and to Clarisse's question about how the use of violence has changed: neither ritual transgression nor critique of audience passivity, but something closer to a clinical, almost documentary exposure of the bleeding body.