Vice Style

The last Lele's World featured 24-year-old Italian, Francesco Igory Deiana, an artist and part-time tattooist based in San Francisco. Here's the interview.

Video I Heart Sambucca, shot by Lele Saveri

Vice: So online you have about a million names?
Francesco: My full name is Francesco Igory Deiana, but I sometimes use my American last name too, Arnold. There's a whole long story behind the Arnold, but I can't really go into it.

Can you tell us about the skaters and artists who make up the Spaghetto Child crew?
Spaghetto Child is a skateboarding crew founded in 2000, by two really good friends of mine: The old school skateboarder and artist Gianluca Mariani and the filmmaker Diana Manfredi (Spaghetto Productions). They organize art shows, skate contests and show films, as well as producing videos and clothes. A lot of my closest friends are part of that family. 

Are you a full-time artist or do you do other things?
Art covers a lot of the different aspects of my life. I consider a lot of what I do as art. For example, I am currently working on two zines for early next year. I'm also working in my friend Ken Een's tattoo shop. I like working there and can use the space as my studio while learning new technics and tattooing sometimes. I also try and paint graffiti, even if it's kinda risky for an immigrant to fuck the law.

Never Ending Struggle is a great name for a blog?
Yeah. To be honest, that is how I feel, but I guess I am talking for myself and people like me. I think if you are a conscious person, you do struggle with this world.

Tell me about Ctocracy.
CTO (Check This Out) are one of my graffiti crews, they're are like family to me. Ctocracy was basically a fanzine based on our lives in Milan, some artwork, and graffiti. We wanted to document the good energy we had. The name Ctocracy was born as a spoof of the Erik Gandini movie Videocracy, which is really popular in Italy right now. It's a controversial movie that talks about the power of media and the hold it has over Italian society. 

What's your obsession with false teeth about?
I was constantly losing my teeth in my dreams. Some people say that means you're scared you're going to lose people you love. 

DARYOUSH HAJ-NAJAFI