Francesco Gagliardi is a visual and performance artist, historian of performance and occasional filmmaker based in Toronto. He studied theater, philosophy, and media arts in Italy, England, and the United States and has been working internationally as an actor, director and performance artist for over a decade. In 2000 he translated, directed, and performed in the first Italian production of Gertrude Stein's “Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights.” His video “Short Sentences: 1993-2005”, also based on a play by Gertrude Stein, has been screened internationally and was awarded the NOW Magazine Overkill Award at Toronto’s Images Festival in 2006. Programs of his performance work were recently presented in Los Angles (The Wulf, December 2008; Sea and Space, December 2009), Berlin (Miss Micks, January 2009), Turin, Italy (quindicifebbraio, June 2009 and July 2010), and New York City (Ontological-Hysteric Theater, September 2009 and May 2010; The Stone, November 2009). Since 2008 he has been active as a curator of performance and experimental music, often in collaboration with composer G. Douglas Barrett. As a performer of other people’s work, he has premiered works by a number of contemporary experimental composers including Jennifer Walshe, Mark So, Adam Overton, Travis Just, and G. Douglas Barrett. He has written about the photographic documentation of performance art in the 1960s and 70s, and is currently working on two research projects focusing, respectively, on the installation work of Joan Jonas and on Stuart Sherman’s tabletop performances.

Artist Code: 985