‘“I can’t wait to paint myself when I’m old and knobbly”: the sensual world of Louis Fratino’ by Alex Needham
2024
Next month, the 2024 Venice Biennale will close, and a memorable painting in the main exhibition will come down: I Keep My Treasure in My Ass, by Louis Fratino. With a title taken from a 1977 book called Towards a Gay Communism, the work depicts Fratino giving birth to himself from his rectum. It has been stopping visitors in their tracks. “I had a friend at the biennale,” says the 31-year-old American artist, “who said that people were almost queuing to stand at that painting—then grimacing or having physical reactions. Which to me is hilarious, because it’s so not naturalistic. There’s no implication of pain. It’s like a tarot card, almost.”
Read more at The Guardian.