Acervo Francisco Copello Norero: Archivo, Obras, Performance y Biografía

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This digital repository is a cohesive organization of the documentary material produced by and/or owned by the visual artist and performer Francisco Copello Norero (Santiago, Chile, 1938–2006), which remained in the possession of the Copello family following his death.

This material, composed of drawings, collages, photographs, audio and video tapes, manuscripts, books, magazines, exhibition catalogs, etc., was previously unpublished, as it had not been made available to the public.

The research aimed to recognize, identify, preserve, and publish the documents in order to make them known to diverse audiences, thereby contributing to a greater understanding of Copello’s artistic legacy within the national and international cultural spheres. Likewise, this project aims to address the current need to rescue and document the personal archives of Chilean artists, on the understanding that it is essential to preserve the memory of artists and make it available to communities that can study them and generate new interpretations that contribute to the enrichment of art history.

Die Ecke

TIMELINE

The following timeline presents all of Francisco Copello’s unpublished artistic and documentary material (photographs of artworks and contexts, leaflets, catalogs, press clippings, etc.) belonging to the Copello-Norero family collection into chronological periods.

Alongside this material are other documents and information from national collections that preserve original documentary material donated during Francisco Copello’s lifetime to foster critical intersections between documentary collections: written documentary material from CeDOC (Center for Visual Arts Documentation, Cerrillos National Center for Contemporary Art) and audiovisual material—recordings of performances, interviews, and others—available online at the National Museum of Fine Arts website.

1962-1967

Francisco Copello moved to Italy to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, after having worked for several years at the family pasta business "Bandera" in Santiago. In Italy he specialized in painting and printmaking, and met the Argentine Inés Osella, his friend and classmate at the Academy. According to Copello’s own accounts, he and Inés took private lessons from the painter and printmaker Augusto Zoboli (Modena, 1894 – Formigine, 1991) for a whole year. Copello was particularly fascinated by Florentine Renaissance architecture and the arts. In 1967, he received his Bachelor’s degree with a major in Painting.

Con Inés Osella, Florencia
Vistas de Florencia
Documentos Academia Bellas Artes Florencia

1967-1972

During his first residency in New York, USA, Francisco Copello specialized in contemporary and experimental printmaking techniques through his studies at the Pratt Graphics Center. He also set up his own studio with musician Fernando Torm, known interchangeably as Studio 69 or Studio F, where he produced graphic works on a larger scale. In this same studio, and influenced by his collaborations with choreographer Laura Dean and playwright Robert Wilson, he made his first foray into Body Art with the photo-performance "The Last Supper," a living tableau of Leonardo da Vinci’s Renaissance masterpiece, and began his journey into bodily, autobiographical, and multidisciplinary experimentation.

Grabados en Nueva York
Studio 69 / Studio F
The Last Supper
The Printer
Sin título

1973-1974

Francisco Copello returned to Chile in late 1972 with the hope of expanding his Body Art in his native country, preparing the performance "Piece for the Insane" at the invitation of the director of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Nemesio Antúnez. The piece was never performed due to the coup d’état, and only recordings from the rehearsals have survived. After the coup, Copello left on a representative mission to the 12th São Paulo Biennial and then returned to live in the USA, where he completed his "Calendar", which he had begun in Chile, before settling for a year in Berkeley, California.

Pieza para Locos
XII Bienal de Sao Paulo
Calendario
Rosas
A star is born

1975-1976

In 1975, Copello returned to live in Italy. At Luciano Inga-Pin’s Diagramma Gallery in Milan, during an exhibition of his prints and presenting a performance involving a feather headdress during the opening, he met photographer Giovanna Dal Magro, who documented the event, marking the beginning of a collaborative artistic relationship that would last more than a decade. That same year, they staged the photo-performance "The Mime and the Flag" in Dal Magro’s studio, marking Copello’s foray into his “psycho-patriotic” performances. In 1976, Copello undertook a journey through what he called “the enchanted islands,” studying the nature of Ecuador, an experience that would influence his work depicting natural, metaphysical, and cosmic landscapes.

Galleria Diagramma
El Mimo y la Bandera
Gioconda
Serie Las Islas Encantadas

1977

In Italy, Copello created both photo-performances (also known as photo shoots) staged in a private studio—conceived and developed based on the relationship between the artist and the photographer—as well as live performances in front of an audience; sometimes as one-off events or as part of a tour where the performance was presented several times.

El Juego de la Ambigüedad
La Partida

1978-1980

Marked from birth—on May 21—by a national symbol, Copello devoted himself with particular fervor to the theme of Chile’s ancient and recent history. Between 1975 and 1979 he created his psychopatriotic performances, which were pantomimic reflections on the consequences of the coup d’état juxtaposed with his own biography and family history, exploring the experimental possibilities of the body itself as a medium.

Y muere glorioso el patriota
Disegni delle Isole Galápagos
Silvio Wolff
Giuseppe Pino
Crucifixión
Modelo Academia Ligure
Omaggio a Neruda

1979

“Star”—or “Little Star”—can be identified as one of the first characters—in this case a female character—that operates as Copello’s alter ego, with her own identity and existence that extends beyond a single performance, and who continues to appear with her own imagery in various works and media.

Estrella Reina Mártir
The Fringe Festival '79

1980-1982

Another prominent photographer with whom Copello collaborated on various projects was Giuliana Traverso (1930–2021), beginning in the early 1980s. At that time, Copello’s performances took a turn toward a more theatrical drama, leaving behind explicitly political topics and exploring the theme of identity through reinterpretations of art history with a more deliberate use of makeup, costumes, set design, and locations. In “A Mime Story”, Copello’s second alter ego character, named Aliviol—a male mime in a perpetual state of travel—makes his formal debut.

Il sembrare e l'essere
A Mime Story
Cuadros de una Exposición
Nace una estrella
Lulú de Alban Berg

1983-1984

In his final years in Italy, Copello directed the subject matter of his performances toward the domains of show business and cinema, having been drawn since childhood to the spectacle and pathos of Hollywood stars. Thus “Lana Turner” was born, a dramatization of this actress’s turbulent life, marking a shift toward more radical experimentation with gender role-playing, while simultaneously drawing on pop culture as a resource for reflecting on his identity.

Lana Turner
Happenings & Performances
Galliera Nou
Sin título (Figuras de Agua)

1984-1990

Copello returned to live in New York, USA, in late 1983, where he developed the female characters in his performances in a more dramatic way. However, during these years he worked more extensively as a master printer, being hired by his friend, the Italian artist Sandro Chia, to serve as his personal print editor, which allowed him to maintain close contact with the Italian Transavantgarde group (theorized by Achille Bonito Oliva) and the gallery system. This work prompted him to produce graphic art more systematically, notably his dry pastel series depicting his imaginaries influenced by the Commedia dell’Arte, The Little Prince, and his metaphysical landscapes. Meanwhile, Copello began experimenting with video performance and the expressive possibilities afforded by the editing and manipulation of the digital image.

The Bride of America
Seduction
Rheinbeck
Serie Circo
Serie Cubos
Serie Principito
Serie Máscaras
Serie Retratos
American Mime Theater
Times & Life of Atahualpa
Vistas de Rio
Obras sin título

1984-1993

The sketchbooks are a series of notebooks written by Copello during his second residency in New York City (1984–1995), which compile both biographical information about his daily experiences and plans, conceptualizations, and the production of performance works such as “The Bride of America”, or “Casta Diva”. These notebooks, operating as diaries, provide direct testimony to this period’s evolution within Copello’s artistic work—both as a performer and as a master printer of engravings for the Italian Transavantgarde artist Sandro Chia, and later as the director of his own printshop. Finally, some of these sketchbooks are also filled with collages and cutouts, some sort of trials for his large-scale works, which today can be considered artist’s books.

Sketchbook 1
Sketchbook 2
Sketchbook 3
Sketchbook 4
Sketchbook 5
Sketchbook 6
Sketchbook 7
Sketchbook 8

1986

One of the most important physical objects in Copello’s collection is his “American French Tool” print press, used during his second residency in New York. This machine originally belonged to the Italian artist Sandro Chia, a friend and classmate of Copello’s at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and a member of the Italian Transavantgarde in the 1980s, who gave it to Copello when the latter decided to stop working as his personal master printer and set up his own business, the Frank Copello Printshop. The press was later brought to Chile by the artist himself when he returned permanently to the country in 1995. Currently, as part of this research, the press is being kept at the Die Ecke Contemporary Art gallery.

Prensa American French Tool

1990-1991

Now running his own business, the Frank Copello Printshop, Copello devoted himself to producing large series of prints and collages both to continue his graphic experimentation and to promote the work created in his studio. Through these techniques, Copello used photographic records of his own past works and performances to revisit and reinterpret them, generating new layers of interpretation of both his real and dramatized biographies. Likewise, these self-referential elements were often mixed with images from other older and contemporary works of art, demonstrating Copello’s profound knowledge of art history.

Cosmologies
Collages The Last Supper
Collages El Mimo y la Bandera
Collages The Bride of America
Collages Casta Diva
Grabados Casta Diva
Collages y grabado sin título
Memories
The Printshop Training
Amazonía
Madhouse
Obras sin título

1992-1994

From the Frank Copello Printshop, Copello devoted himself to creating large series of prints and collages both to continue his graphic experimentation and to promote the work produced in his studio. Through these techniques, Copello used photographic records of his own previous works and performances to revisit and reinterpret them; a clear example of this is the collage “Water Figures”, where, based on a photographic record of a performance, the artist continues the movement of water by capturing it on paper, generating new layers of interpretation of both his real and dramatized biographies. Likewise, these self-referential elements were often mixed with images; for example, in the engraving Picabia, we see in the distance a fragment of a photograph—the eyes of the artist Francis Picabia—following his intention to reference figures from the art world.

Fotografías sin título tomadas por Rainer Fetting
Collage Figuras de Agua
El perro de Lichtenstein
Picabia
Sin Título

1995-1998

By the time of his final return to Chile in 1995, Copello had already established an extensive and distinguished career in the fields of performance art, body art, and the graphic arts, which earned him invitations to participate in various group exhibitions. It was only then that Copello’s art began to gain recognition in his native country.

Técnica mixta sin título
Serie Volcanes
Africus Bienal de Johannesburg, MAC
Internacional de Gráfica Faber Castell, MAC
Collages Francisco Copello, CCLC
Huellas, MAC
Pinturas objetuales
El Viaje
Homenaje a Goya
Misa Negra y Vogue

1999

In 1999, a retrospective solo exhibition of Copello’s work was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts, earning him greater recognition, especially among younger audiences. Meanwhile, Copello continued to create new performances, such as “Family Matters”, always addressing autobiographical topics.

Francisco Copello, Posada del Corregidor
Razones de Familia, Posada del Corregidor
Arte reciente en Santiago de Chile, Galería Posada del Corregidor
Autorretrato
Ningún artista ve las cosas como son...
Primer Encuentro de Artes Emergentes
Sin título
Warhola y Razones de Familia

2000-2003

During his years in Chile, Copello gradually gained recognition in the art world, leading to various interviews and features in catalogs and publications. Now in his sixties, Copello remained active, creating new performances and producing a large body of graphic work.

Descubriendo el Arte
Performance sin identificar, Chile
Sesión fotográfica en casa, Chile
Revista Lat.33 Septiembre 2003
Serie El Viaje del Ángel
Fragile
Folleto "Copello 2001 Exposición - Collages y Serigrafía", MAC Valdivia
Chitón
Invitación "Fotografía de Performance: análisis autobiográfico de mis performances", MNBA
Folleto "Francisco Copello, Ejercicios sobre la Memoria", Pinacoteca U. Concepción
Obras sin título
"La Vida es un Sueño", Revista Ambientes N° 33
"Sobre el arcoíris", Revista Ambientes N° 34

2004-2006

In his later years, Copello remained prolific, participating in various exhibitions and producing primarily graphic and digital works. Prominent among these was his 2004 revival of "Piece for the Insane", his collective performance thwarted in 1973 by the coup d’état. For this revival, he collaborated with theater students from the Arcis University, featuring Vicky Larraín, an original member of the actors’ collective in 1973.

Movie Play
El Día de los Locos, 11-S-1973, U. Arcis
Obras sin título
Bandera
Sortilegio
Serie Poesía técnica mixta
Revista Paula "Copello Technicolor"
Lo mejor de Copello, U. de Talca
Revista Arte al Límite "El rey sin corona"

2019-2020

Following his death in 2006, Copello’s work has continued to be included in exhibitions, research, and curatorial projects, serving as a benchmark in the field of performance art in Chile. His posthumous representation has been run by Die Ecke Contemporary Art gallery in Santiago, which has carried out exhibitions of his works both at the gallery and other national and international venues.

Revista Más Deco "Performance by Frank Copello in the 80s"
XI Bienal de Berlín

Anexo

Given Francisco Copello’s vast body of work, particularly his graphic works, the research team found a series of images with no indentifiable information regarding dates and/or titles. To ensure the inclusion of this material, it has been grouped in the following section for its viewing and subsequent data collection.

Obras sin fecha

Printshop

At the Frank Copello Printshop, Copello counted renowned artists such as Sandro Chia, Keith Haring, Mark Kostabi, and Rainer Fetting among his clients, producing print editions that proved his ability to translate these artists’ diverse graphic styles onto paper.

Sandro Chia
Keith Haring
Mark Kostabi
Rainer Fetting

BIOGRAPHY OF FRANCISCO COPELLO

Francisco Copello Norero was born in Santiago, Chile, on May 21, 1938, the son of Italian immigrant parents. During his childhood, he studied at the Scuola Italiana. Later, he briefly studied law and subsequently worked for several years at his father’s “Bandera” pasta factory.

In 1962, he left for Italy to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence until 1966, where he earned a degree with a major in Painting. In late 1966, he married American socialite Susan Stevenson, and moved with her to the USA, where, through his wife’s family connections, he began working at the Whitney Museum and came into contact with several contemporary artists, including Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

Soon after, in 1967, Copello moved to New York City to specialize in printmaking at the Pratt Graphics Center, where his teachers included the Latin American artists Luis Camnitzer and Roberto Delamónica, as well as Michael Knigin, one of the founders of Chiron Press, one of the most important print shops of the era in the production of Pop Art. He served as an assistant and collaborator to Michael Knigin during the establishment of his new private printmaking studio. After a year of study at the Pratt Graphics Center, he earned the title of Master Printer and established his own studio-workshop alongside musician Fernando Torm—known interchangeably as Studio F or Studio 69—a space dedicated to the development of printmaking, music, and dance.

Between 1969 and 1972, Copello began exploring body art by joining choreographer Laura Dean’s dance troupe and Robert Wilson’s Hoffman School of Byrds theater company, where he participated in a preliminary version of the play “K.A. Mountain and Gardenia Terrace” across several floors of a New York City building. In 1969, Copello created his first body art piece titled “The Last Supper,” a photo-performance documented by Fernando Torm that consisted of tableaux vivants depicting various poses from Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” staged in his studio.

In late 1972, Copello returned to live in Chile with the aim of expanding his body art in his native country. He carried out two projects: a photo-performance titled “Calendar” documented by Luis Poirot, and prepared a live performance titled “Piece for the Insane”—a reenactment of a painting of an asylum by Francisco de Goya—to be staged at the National Museum of Fine Arts on September 12, 1973. Both works were cut short as a result of the September 11 coup d’état.

Copello soon left the country, accepting an invitation to join the Chilean delegation at the 12th São Paulo Biennial in Brazil. After his participation in the biennial, Copello returned to the USA and completed the series of images that make up his “Calendar” with the young photographer Wren de Antonio, and then settled for a year in Berkeley, California, with his friend Claudio Naranjo.

In 1975, Copello settled in Milan, Italy, to expand and deepen the development of body art. That year, he held an exhibition of his prints at Luciano Inga-Pin’s Galleria Diagramma, where he performed a live action wearing a feather headdress, which was photographed on site by the photographer Giovanna Dal Magro.

Este encuentro daría paso a una relación artística de más de una década; destaca dentro de sus colaboraciones la foto-performance “El Mimo y la Bandera” realizada en el estudio fotográfico de Giovanna Dal Magro. Durante una década residió Copello en Italia viviendo en diversas ciudades de la región ligure, donde realizó diversas foto-performances con destacados fotógrafos italianos tales como Giuseppe Pino, Maurizio Buscarino y Giuliana Traverso; destacan particularmente sus foto-performances “A Mime Story” y “Cuadros de una Exposición”. Asimismo, desarrolló en gran medida sus performances en vivo entre las que destacan sus performances “psicopatrióticas” alusivas al tema político del golpe de estado y la historia de Chile (realizadas entre 1975-1979), tales como “La Partida”, “Omaggio a Neruda” y “Esmeralda”, muchas de las cuales itineró en diversos festivales internacionales. Hacia 1980 sus obras performáticas se alejan de la política y empieza a explorar nuevas temáticas cada vez más cercanas al imaginario popular, tal como se expresa en la performance “Lana Turner” de 1983. Durante sus años en Italia, se desempeñó como profesor de expresión corporal y body-art en la escuela de Leona Laviscount, la escuela de danza de Patrizia Carratu y en el Centro Cultural Campetto Sette.

In late 1983, Copello returned to live in New York City for the second time. Between 1984 and 1986, he worked as an assistant master printer for his friend, the Italian Transavantgarde artist Sandro Chia, which allowed him to establish connections with the contemporary art scene. During these years, he also developed his performances “The Bride of America” and “Casta Diva.” Between 1986 and 1987, Copello established his own printmaking studio, the Frank Copello Printshop, where he produced editions for artists such as Sandro Chia, Rainer Fetting, Mark Kostabi, and Keith Haring, among others. In this same studio, he created several print series, such as “Times & Life of Atahualpa,” “Volcanes,” and “Cosmologies.” At the same time, he joined Paul Curtis’s American Mime Theater company.

After more than a decade, Copello returned to Chile permanently in 1996. In 1997, he received the Art Critics’ Award for the exhibitions “Footprints” at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Chile and “Collages by Francisco Copello” at the Las Condes Cultural Corporation. In 1999, a retrospective exhibition of prints, photographs, installations, collages, and videos was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts; he also presented the exhibition and performance “Family Matters” at the Posada del Corregidor Gallery.

He wrote his memoirs, titled “Performance Photography: An Autobiographical Analysis of My Performances,” which was launched in 2002 at the National Museum of Fine Arts by the publisher Ocholibros.

He continued to hold exhibitions until his death on May 11, 2006.

Foto: Giovanna Dal Magro

DANCING WITH COPELLO

María Victoria Martínez Fadic,

Curatorial Researcher

My first encounter with the legacy of the artist and performer Francisco Copello was in 2014, while I was doing a professional internship at the Visual Arts Documentation Center (CeDOC) when it was still located at the Palacio La Moneda Cultural Center. There I began my specialization in the field of organizing and researching visual artists’ documentary archives. In that context, I was handed a box full of more or less loose papers—a few paper clips and staples were the only devices providing any semblance of organization—and I was asked to broadly identify, classify, and provide an initial structure for this collection of documents, which had not been reviewed to date. These papers consisted of Copello’s writings, typewritten documents, and mostly manuscripts. Having only just begun to get to know this artist through this request, I very soon discovered two things: 1) his biography is intricate and circular; he comes and goes from places, constructs characters and alter egos, has more than one personality, takes passages from his real life and then fictionalizes them; and 2) his handwriting is as curly and difficult to read as his own biography.

(...)

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Francisco Copello Library