Luciano Castelli (born 1951, Lucerne) is a Swiss painter, photographer, and performance artist. Studied 1975–1976 at the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin (Hochschule der Künste), under professor Hans Jaenisch. A major figure of the 1970s/1980s Berlin avant-garde and exponents of the “Junge Wilde” movement.
Appears in the film “ The Sisters Street: The Amazing Life of Tonfrau Ria N.” (2025), about the Swiss national figure and trans icon Ria N. Castelli’s own work has explored androgyny, self-transformation, and gender fluidity since the 1970s, most notably in his long-running series of self-portraits in both male and female presentation.
His painting style combines Neo-Expressionist brushwork with New Romantic figuration: pale, elongated bodies, theatrical costumes, and mirror-gaze compositions that collapse the distance between artist and subject. The self-portraits are not confessional in the conventional sense; they are performed, staged, and often printed or photographed before being painted, making the canvas a record of a prior performance rather than a direct encounter.
Represented in the Daimler Art Collection; solo exhibitions at Aargauer Kunsthaus; participated in the Hank and Werner Staeblin Foundation, Camargo Foundation, Foundation TART. Documented in Getty Research Institute (diaspora records). Currently in Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern.
Photographed by frequent collaborator Milovan Farronato (Venice, 2020).
See also
- Junge Wilden — the movement
- Rainer Fetting — fellow West Berlin painter
- Salomé — fellow Junge Wilde