Lucerne: model, self-promoter, Art Star

Luciano Castelli visited the preliminary course of the School of Applied Arts^[1] where he studied with Max von Moos. Then he learned signwriting and became in the early 1970s the key figure in Lucerne's Bohemia.^[2] Castelli and his residential community^[3] became part of art history through snapshots that artist Franz Gertsch transformed into monumental photorealistic paintings. In addition to "Luciano Castelli I",^[4] "At Luciano's House" and "Marina making up Luciano",^[5] it was mainly "Medici", a group portrait of "the long-haired freaks around the shrill painter Luciano Castelli" that became the "cover picture of Harald Szeemann's documenta 5".^[6] Castelli, who showed in 1971 Shiloum", a smoke pipe used for hashish.^[7] Castelli became a star of the art world.^[8] Much he owed to Jean-Christophe Ammann, the former assistant of Szeemann and director of the Museum of Art Lucerne, who had brought him into contact with Gertsch and invited him at the Documenta. 1974 Ammann showed in his seminal exhibition "Transformer - Aspects of Travesty" androgynous photos of Castelli.^[9] The exhibition represented also the Surrealist Pierre Molinier, who later staged Castelli for photos.^[10] Castelli’s androgynous self-styling was influenced by the aesthetics of Glam Rock, but then he began to fathom other roles like the young conservative, the movie star or the sadomasochist.^[10]

Berlin: Junge Wilde and Punk

1978 Castelli went to Berlin and became part of the circle around the Galerie am Moritzplatz, to which he adapted with his expressive, fast painting.^[11] The painters who demarcated from intellectualism and the severity of the 1970s avant-garde, became a part of art history as Neue Wilde. Castelli painted works together with Salomé as well as with Rainer Fetting.^[12] Together with Salomé he founded the avant-garde punk band Geile Tiere (Horny Animals), where he sang and played bass. The band was closely associated with the Berlin Club Jungle and obtained notoriety by shrill appearances. With Salomé and Fetting Castelli undertook in 1982 a tour through France with performance concerts.^[12]

Paris: Camera Obscura and Revolving Paintings

In 1989 Castelli settled down in Paris and married two years later Alexandra, who he painted over and over again. He experimented with a home-made camera obscura and developed his Revolving Paintings. They can be turned 360° and have no defined upper edge. Depending on how they are hung, the viewer sees other faces, bodies, or city views. The motives "overlap and penetrate each other, giving supposedly abstract structures that turn out to be representational when the corresponding motive stays right," writes Peter K. Wehrli.^[12]

Comeback

Currently Castelli witnesses a growing interest in his work.^[13] His photographic self-portraits have been published in a book by renowned art publisher Edition Patrick Frey and shown in a broad overview exhibition in Paris.^[14] In 2015 the National Art Museum of China in Beijing presents a major exhibition on the paintings that then goes to the Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai.^[15] For China Castelli developed engines, which slowly rotate the Revolving Paintings by 360°.

Miscellaneous

• 1985 Luciano Castelli portrayed musician Stephan Eicher for the cover of the LP I Tell This Night.
• In 2011, the Gertsch Portrait "Luciano 1" was sold at an auction by Sotheby's at a price of 2.3 million Swiss francs.^[16]