Franko B at The Globe Gallery

Head-turning artist Franko B, who has chosen Newcastle to premiere his latest performance, tells DAVID WHETSTONE about his colourful and unlikely career

Franko B at the Globe Gallery in Newcastle. Photo by Colin Davison

Franko B at the Globe Gallery in Newcastle. Photo by Colin Davison

With his Red Cross facial tattoos, gold teeth and flamboyant spectacles, renowned artist Franko B is likely to attract curious glances on any street.

It has happened in Newcastle, although it hasn’t put him off the city which he is soon to revisit.

“I love Newcastle, I really do,” he insists.

“I’m not just saying that. Thanks to Rashida I’ve done several shows at the Globe Gallery since the early 2000s.”

Rashida Davison, who set up Globe Gallery 26 years ago, remembers feeling anxious when she first got a call from one of Franko’s people to see if she could mount an exhibition and organise a performance.

“I agreed but I was really worried that we couldn’t provide what was required. I thought perhaps we’d been approached by accident and he’d be disappointed.”

Rashida has worked with many artists but this was in the early days and Franko B was known to be meticulous, a perfectionist. Moreover, he and his work, notably as performance artist, were in demand internationally.

There was a frisson of controversy, too, as there often is with artists who use their own body as a ‘canvas’.

One of Franko B’s most memorable performances, seen around the world including at London’s Tate Modern in 2003, had him walking along a catwalk, his naked body painted ghostly white, with blood dripping at his feet.

It was, states the artist’s website, a play on “the worlds of fashion and art whilst confronting the human form at its most existential and essential”.

Franko B brings his latest exhibition to The Globe Gallery in Newcastle

Franko B brings his latest exhibition to The Globe Gallery in Newcastle

Franko B was far from disappointed by his Tyneside experience.

“He has remained a complete friend and supporter of the gallery,” says Rashida.

The latest exhibition, tender, memorable and beautifully displayed, is called Things That Make Me Cry and it might make you cry but it might also make you smile. It will certainly make you think.

As well as some of Franko B’s deft and sought after stitched drawings, red on white, there is a suitcase installation and there are The Lost Boys.

These ceramic figures, 267 of them, are hung in a line around the gallery. As with every human throng, all are different.

Some are missing limbs, some have curiously shaped heads and there are gouges, scars and indentations. But all are in different colours and the overall effect is visually compelling, even jaunty.

Sounding a sombre counterpoint are the ceramic houses, more like prison cells, dotted across the floor. More figures are confined within, seemingly cut off from their playmates on the walls.

On the phone Franko B explains how The Lost Boys, which he started making in 2017, hark back to his traumatic early years in northern Italy.

Born in 1960 to a young unmarried woman (the “town scandal” he surmises in his startling autobiography) he was left in the care of an orphanage.

Having been restored to her after she married his stepfather, he suffered abuse from the pair of them.

At the age of 10 and traumatised from the shouting, beatings and even being forced to beg, social services intervened and he was deposited in a Red Cross institution.

Franko B brings his latest exhibition to The Globe Gallery in Newcastle

There are 267 of The Lost Boys in the exhibition – ceramic figures which line the Globe Gallery walls

“It was better than being at home,” he says, “because I was protected from my parents. But the care we got was basic and there was a lot of abuse of power.

“I think of those kids and cry because of what happened to them. Some were luckier than others. Some were emotionally damaged.

“I left the institution when I was 14 and didn’t have any more contact with any of them. They’re all lost in the world now.

“I wanted to make a piece in homage to them.”

The Globe Gallery, overlooking Newcastle city centre from the top of Commercial Union House on Pilgrim Street, seems an apt setting for these Lost Boys.

All are available to be ‘adopted’ – purchased if you prefer – by gallery visitors who will get a special adoption certificate.

“I have these metaphors for the boys,” says Franko B, who refuses to use his stepfather’s surname.

“You buy one and take it into your home and give it love and in this way I imagine them free in the world. It’s not something you need, a piece of equipment. It’s a piece of art.”

Franko doesn’t know his lost companions’ stories but his is perhaps the most extraordinary of all.

At 19 he made his way to London, arriving in 1979 just after Margaret Thatcher entered Number 10 and punk rock was still a force in the land. Definite plans he had none.

“I was a punk and coming to England was a liberation,” he recalls. “I felt like a free man. I lived my life and nobody cared what I did.”

Franko B's exhibition at The Globe Gallery in Newcastle

The Globe Gallery’s Rashida Davison with a Lost Boy. Photo by Colin Davison

His book, written a few years ago, catches the ups and downs – the squats, the clubbing, the liaisons, the campaigning against homophobia, the occasional beatings and the shifts in the kitchens of London’s Italian restaurants.

One day, unlikely as it may seem, a girl told him about a pottery class she attended. It only cost £1 a year so why didn’t he go along? Not being able to think of a reason why not, he agreed. He discovered his creative side and it changed his life.

“It was about a year later and this really lovely pottery teacher said to me, ‘Franko, why don’t you go to art school?’

“I said I didn’t have any education. I was almost illiterate. He said, ‘No, they’ll love you’. I applied for a foundation course at Camberwell (College of Arts) and they took me. They liked the energy in my work. I was 25.”

Franko went on to get a degree (first class) at Chelsea College of Arts where he studied painting before branching out into performance and other forms of artistic expression. Art is his means of communication and his passion.

Franko B at The Globe Gallery in Newcastle

Things That Make Me Cry is at The Globe Gallery in Newcastle until July 10, 2021

“I see myself as somebody who follows his religion which is art,” he says.

Those tattoos, though, are “personal”, reminders of aspects of the colourful life he has lived. During performances, they are covered up.

The Lost Boys, says Franko, marked a return to his early days as a potter. He enjoyed creating these perfectly lovely representations of human imperfection but there won’t be any more. Life moves on.

In Newcastle, as the first stop on a tour, he will give the UK premiere performance of a new piece called I’m Here in which aspects of his 30 years’ work will be projected onto his body.

“It’ll be a different type of work using technology and digital know-how which I don’t understand but collaborating with people who are good at what they do.

“Some things are difficult to talk about and I’m interested in using my body as a bridge.

“Art has an amazing power to connect with people and you don’t need to have been to art school. You can be any person in the world.”

I’m Here, co-hosted with Newcastle University which has been working closely with Globe on its In Here We Meet programme of gallery conversations, will be live streamed from the Urban Sciences Building on Friday, July 2 at 7pm.

On Thursday, July 1 at 6pm, you can also see Franko B in conversation with Prof Gavin Butt, of Northumbria University.

For details of both free events, go to the Globe Gallery Facebook or Instagram pages or www.globegallery.org

The exhibition Things That Make Me Cry is at Globe Gallery, Floor 7, Commercial Union House, 39 Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, until Saturday, July 10.

@DavidJWhetstone

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