Luciano Castelli

Luciano Castelli (born September 28, 1951 in Lucerne) is a Swiss painter, graphic artist, photographer, sculptor and musician.

Life and work

Lucerne: model, self-promoter, Art Star

Luciano Castelli visited the preliminary course of the School of Applied Arts where he studied with Max von Moos. Then he learned signwriting and became in the early 1970s the key figure in Lucerne's Bohemia. Castelli and his residential community became part of art history through snapshots that artist Franz Gertsch transformed into monumental photorealistic paintings. In addition to "Luciano Castelli I", "At Luciano's House" and "Marina making up Luciano", 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". Castelli, who showed in 1971 Shiloum", a smoke pipe used for hashish. Castelli became a star of the art world. 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 ivited him at the Documenta. 1974 Ammann showed in his seminal exhibition "Transformer - Aspects of Travesty" androgynous photos of Castelli. The exhibition represented also the Surrealist Pierre Molinier, who later staged Castelli for photos. 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.