Swiss artist (1951) Luciano Castelli is a painter, photographer and sculptor.

‘When the painter Luciano Castelli began posing for the camera in the early 1970s, he adopted a variety of roles, acting out every conceivable facet of himself. In utter disregard of gender distinctions, he variously transformed himself into an androgynous mythical creature and a glam rock diva. His virtuoso, surreal self-portraits, so far published only in limited form, are of an undiminished vibrancy in their playful eroticism and darkly narrative thrust. They reveal a hitherto underrated aspect of Castelli’s ouevre, which now, several decades later, could well be seen in an entirely new light. Very much in the spirit of the French psychoanalyst and art critic Jean-Michel Ribettes, who already in 2001 read Castelli‘s expressive theatricality as a timeless phenomenon and critique of a puritan society: “Castelli‘s expressive theatricality is there to protest at the confusion of a gregarious, prudish, vilely mercantile period.”‘ – Luciano Castelli: Self-portrait 1973 to 1986

The book Luciano Castelli: Self-portrait 1973 to 1986 edited by Patrick Frey and designed by Beda Achermann is available to buy here.

Paintings:

Backside Nude, 1992

Die Sonne Macht Geil, 1983

Jenny, 1986

Luciano Kuckt Auf Japan, 1980

Via: Luciano Castelli, Vanished like a Breeze, Comma22, Angle Records