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I Miss You was a performance by the Italian-born, UK-based artist Franko B, which formed part of Live Culture, a programme of performance-focused events that took place at Tate Modern from the 27 to 30 March 2003. I Miss You was staged in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall as the culmination of the programme. For the work, the ground floor of the Turbine Hall was transformed into a catwalk-style runway, with a long stretch of white fabric, illuminated by strobe lights which skirted its parameter, running through the length of the space. The audience watched the performance from either side of the runway and, as with a typical fashion catwalk show, photographers were placed at the end to snap the performer, stoically striding from one end of the walkway to the other. The body on display, however, was not the slim body of a supermodel, but the completely nude, bald, stocky, and eventually bleeding body of Franco B, who was covered from head to toe in a white paint, which blotted out the marks of his heavily tattooed skin. As the performance progressed blood flowed down the artist’s body from a cannula inserted in the elbow crease of each arm. Eventually the blood dripped onto the white sheet below, so that the length of the runway soon became blood-speckled and a larger pool of red developed at either end, where the artist would pause for a few moments each time he completed a lap of the catwalk before turning to walk in the other direction.

Photographs by Hugo Glendinning