franco bellucci
fluctuations of desire
Born in Livorno in 1945, Bellucci began creating objects in the late 1970s, thus channeling his destructive impulses and reconciling them – through the frequent use of toys – with the state of childhood to which an encephalitis had condemned him from an early age.
Deprived of speech, he began to produce objects, proceeding through hybridization, which are perceived at times as transitional, at times as fetishes. While Franco Bellucci passed away in 2020, taking with him the enigma of his visual language, Fluctuations of Desire is the third monographic exhibition dedicated to him.
In Franco Bellucci’s work, while the idea of reconstruction – even of repair, a concept dear to Kader Attia – comes to the forefront, it is hard not to think of an act of resilience upon learning that, as a young adult, he spent years strapped to a restraining bed to tame his agitation, easily attributed to his inability to express himself. This lasted until he discovered that objects could give him back his voice.
However, unlike Judith Scott, the spider-like weaver of cocoons meant to conceal objects, or Pascal Tassini, who explores the proliferating possibilities of knots, Franco Bellucci reveals, sublimates, and resurrects.
By crafting chimeras, he metaphorizes his struggle against fragmentation while imbuing his objects with an absolute power of recreation.
Moreover, as Damien Aubel emphasizes, “these objects convey all the fluctuations of desire. Speaking and desiring things: this is what we are, this is what the works of Franco Bellucci are.”
Bellucci attended the Blu Cammello workshop in Livorno, where he was brought to light by the artist Riccardo Bargellini. His hybrid sculptures, born from the assemblage of eclectic objects, form a mysterious language where destinies intertwine and echo one another, seen through the lens of transition, fetishism, or the apotropaic.
His works, part of the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Pompidou) and the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, have been showcased in numerous major exhibitions, notably at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
“These works are endowed with a symbolic power that many ‘professional’ artists are incapable of achieving. “(P. Dagen, Le Monde)
catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition :
franco bellucci : fluctuations du désir
from february 1st to march 1st, 2025
text : damien aubel
to purchase the catalogue click here : cliquez ici