Franko B.'s 'Love Letters' at Palazzo Sant'Elia in Palermo

Franko B.'s exhibition 'Love Letters' is on view at Palazzo Sant'Elia in Palermo, curated by Paola Nicita and Antonio Leone. The show features large performance photographs and black monochromes with subtle linear reliefs outlining figures. Franko B. (born Milan, 1960) uses blood as a medium, drawing from his performances where blood is extracted from his body and applied to images. The work references love passions and the mythological figure of Silenus, exploring the body as a site of conflict and desire. The artist's tattoos narrate events, loves, and cruelties. The exhibition invokes the myth of Marsyas, contrasting Apollonian clarity with Dionysian darkness, and engages with Lacanian notions of aggressivity and the mirror stage. Franko B.'s blood functions as a transitive sign, repeated across images. The body is presented as a code of norms, not passions, echoing Yves Klein's anthropometries from 1960. The show runs at Palazzo Sant'Elia, Palermo.