Francesco Cavaliere is a visual artist, writer and sound maker born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1980. He lives and works between Berlin and Turin. His works are capable of enlivening his listeners' inner states through a polymorphic activity that combines writing, sound, voice, drawing, sculpture, which together stimulate the imagination, undertaking long journeys crossed by ephemeral presences. He writes sound stories and music based on particles of sound, noise and language, often integrated with installation and scenographic elements or live performance, showing a particular taste for the most diverse forms of exoticism. Over the years he has developed a veritable dictionary to catalogue the metamorphic beings that inhabit his own abstract fantasy universe: hybrids of objects, animals, plants, planets, trails, cosmic objects and physical and perceptual phenomena generated by glass, minerals and voices, recorded and performed with analog technologies. "I am a talking scribe ... my voice is a cloud, my pen hisses."
From 2011 to today Francesco Cavaliere has produced series of performances, light and sound actions, concerts, radio and audio-visual works, audio stories, readings in the visual and musical field, Augmented Reality stories, including: XILEMA di sabbie linfatiche inseminano creature vitree eidetiche (2022), Sussurra Luce@Radio Raheem/Triennale (2021-22), UZU CIMA I+II (2021-22), L'arco Infra le Nubi (2021), FlyaGo! (2021), Glass Music (2020), Il Cavaliere Leonardo (2019), Imitatori del tempo (2019), Weather Imitators (2018), Murales del paesaggio (2018), Green Music (2017-19), Gancio Cielo I-II (2016- 2020), Squame Mosaico (2015), Guanto Parabola (2015), Capogiro degli Dei (2015), Set Mosaic (2013), Musica Galvanica (2013), Guam! Alabaster Abacus (2014), Volta di Lame di Lune (2012), Mirror Trance Theatre (2011). Along 2023-2024 he developed Corpi Abissali / Abyssal Creatures, a project between sculpture, performance, sound and text, with several occasions of activation, curated and produced by Xing with the support of the Italian Council.
His work has been shown in museums, art centers and international festivals including: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, KORA Contemporary Art Centre, Castrignano de’ Greci; Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milano; Ti con zero, Xing/Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma; Una Cosa Mostruosa, Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo; Triennale Teatro, FOG, Milano; O Museu como Performance, Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Porto; LUFF Festival, Lausanne; Ambient Festival, Cologne; Live Arts Week/Xing, Bologna; GLUCK 50, Milano; Terraforma, Villa Arconati, Milano; RIBOCA1 Riga International Biennial, Riga; Issue Project Room, New York; Cafè Oto, London; Helicotrema Recorded Audio Festival, RAI radio 3, Milan; INFRA FESTIVAL, Tokyo; BOZAR, Bruxelles; 3HD Fest, HAU Habbel am Ufer, Berlin; Empty Gallery, Honk Kong; 7th Berlin Biennale; Les Urbaines Festival, Lausanne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Grimmuseum Berlin; CTM festival Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Warsaw: QO2 Bruxelles; Kraak Ghent; ART Brussels.
Personal exhibitions in the visual field: Abyss Gazer, il guardatore dell’abisso (2024), Barriera, Torino, Prodigy Kid (2022), MAR Museo d'Arte della Città di Ravenna; Dite Sbadiglio di Evaporite (2022), Colli, Rome; The City of Thing (2022), Hypermaremma, Ansedonia; La Lince d'Ombra e Pietra Sponga (2021), Una Boccata d'Arte, Fondazione Elpis e Galleria Continua, Vallo di Nera ; Anubis vs Baboon (2019) Gluck 50, Milan; Soffio Che Scotta (2015); Xing/Marsèlleria, Milan; Lancio Meta Meteo (2014) Grimmuseum, Berlin; Volta di Lame di Lune (2012), Kinderhook and Caracas, Berlin.
Group exhibitions: Raymond et des Palmes (2018), part of Manifesta 12, Palermo; Green Music (2017) Yamamoto Gendai Gallery, Tokyo; The Glowing Glove (2014) Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Volta di Lame di Lune (2012), Liverpool Biennale.
Francesco Cavaliere, also known as Francis Knight, has released the double LP Gancio Cielo (Hundebiss records - for which he also curated the on-line project Musica Virtuale), the LPs Etrusca 3D (Discrepant), Zoomachia Disc (Fantom Dischi), I-A-K Interplanetary-Abyssal-Kite (Xong Collection, Xing), Aquilone Grattacielo dj mix (Pacific City Disc), Sijuaq il Chiurlo veggente (Poole music). He also released on cassette and digital the sound works Volta di Lame di Lune, Alata Onda, I films fan venire gli occhi rossi, IATO (self productions) and ENERGIA NUVOLA (Troglosound), Xylomania (CN), Doro Bengala (Presto!?). In duo with Sea Urchin they released the albums Yaqaza (Kraak rec), Tahtib (Bokeh versions), Natal Uranus (Commend see, RVNG), and in duo with Tomoko Sauvage the LP Viridescence (Marionette). He published the books Gancio Cielo DNA CLEPSYDRA (NERO editions), Anubis vs Baboon (Lombardelli Ed, Gluck 50), Il Grillo Minerva (ViaIndustriae), Popoli di Vetro (Viaindustriae, Xing).
He has collaborated with visual artists, musicians and choreographers: Leila Hassan, Marcel Türkowsky, Elisabeth Kirche, Ignaz Schick, Ghédalia Tazartès, Invernomuto, Lievens Martens Moana/Dolphins Into The Future, Ruben Spini, Annamaria Ajmone, Spencer Clark, Tomoko Sauvage, Leonardo Pivi, Christopher Kline, Amy Franceschini.
Francesco Cavaliere is represented by Colli Independent Gallery, Rome.