To them he’s just another good-looking guy with all the money and all the luck. What they don’t realize is that people tend to see only the end results of hard work, not all the headaches and bullshit it takes for projects to actually get done.

At age thirty-five, not only is he well-credentialed, but he is a multimillionaire with a net worth of about $22 million. He has appeared in seventy-two films and in numerous television shows. Sure, growing up in LA didn’t hurt. Neither did having smart & creative parents who both went to Stanford. Most importantly, it seems like he is someone who has the ability, a superpower really, to not only recognize but to act on an opportunity when he sees one. Anyone can recognize an opportunity, but to act in the right way at the right time, that is much rarer than one might think.

Article seen in the New York <i>Metro</i> paper, given out to subway riders.

But from what it looks like, if it’s possible for him to do something, he does it. He’s been a student, a director, and an actor, worked at McDonald’s, dropped out, gotten in, traveled the world and is constantly busy.

He’s even contributed to art projects such as THE THING Quarterly and Carter’s Erased James Franco and Maladies.

IMDB also says about him that he “may perhaps be one of the most academically accomplished actors (an ‘extreme scholar’) in Hollywood history: besides his BFA in English from UCLA, he has two MFA degrees—both in writing—from Columbia and Brooklyn College, and a third MFA, in film, from New York University. He is continuing further degree studies while also teaching a graduate class that takes students through the process of making a feature-length film.”

But back to the mural—I am no expert on James Franco, but I know that defacing other people’s art is pathetic. Although the mural itself is essentially an ad for his new film This Is the End, it is as crudely painted as any you’d find in an elementary school. But hey—given the choice of a brick wall or a mural, I’d always choose a mural. And if you don’t like it, paint one of your own!

The graffiti is in bad taste in Williamsburg, a place known for its snotty rich kids whose rent is paid by their parents. Bars there are open until 4:30 a.m., allowing them to party all night while attending prestigious schools in Manhattan. To them maybe he doesn’t deserve the accolades he’s received, or they feel it is somehow unfair that he is in films and they are not. That he is in art shows and they are not. That he is on TV and they are not. That he’s hella cute and they are not.

Instead of hating on James Franco so hard, maybe ask yourself what you are doing with your time.

]]> http://blog.sfmoma.org/2013/05/missed-connections-spring/feed/ 0 http://blog.sfmoma.org/2013/05/san-francisco-art-invades-new-york/ http://blog.sfmoma.org/2013/05/san-francisco-art-invades-new-york/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 15:27:24 +0000 Chris Cobb http://blog.sfmoma.org/?p=51578

Trisha Donnelly, Tauba Auerbach, Alicia McCarthy, Xylor Jane, and others at Alicia McCarthy’s opening in Manhattan

Sometimes in New York this thing happens—you are going out and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by folks you know from San Francisco. After a while you might pause, stare up at the sky, and ask to nobody in particular, “Where are they all coming from?”

Even when you talk to complete strangers—if you talk with them long enough, chances are they know somebody you know from the Bay Area. This town can be an isolating place, so when it happens, it can be strangely reassuring.

Anyway, lately I keep seeing people I know, sort of know, and barely know from San Francisco.

In the booth at NADA with Aaron Harbour and Jackie Im of Et al. Works by Kate Bonner, Chris Hood, Andrew Chapman, and Adrianne Rubenstein

This week, it was at the NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) fair. I saw Aaron Harbour, Jackie Im, and Facundo Argañaraz, the proprietors of Et al., one of San Francisco’s newest galleries (not to be confused with ET AL., ETC., of Tokyo; et al projects, of Brooklyn; or et al. and the rest (of it), from New Zealand). They showed a selection of sculptures and paintings and reportedly got a visit from the famous New York art critic Jerry Saltz.

Nearby I saw the Queen’s Nails booth with Bob Linder and Julio César Morales. Queen’s Nails always seemed less like a commercial gallery to me than a kind of anything-goes project space where artists could do whatever they want. In that sense, then, it was a good surprise to see them representing at the art fair. The translation of risky art into sellable art is a tough one, but if it can be done, it can be done in New York.

Xylor Jane with Tauba Auerbach (Alicia McCarthy in the background) at Alicia McCarthy’s solo show at Jack Hanley’s gallery in Manhattan

At the same time, just a few short blocks away Alicia McCarthy was having a solo show at Jack Hanley’s new gallery on the Lower East Side, which is where all the cool things are happening now in New York.

Her opening drew an impressive crowd. Tauba Auerbach was there, as were Xylor Jane, Trisha Donnelly, Christopher Garrett, Bill Jenkins, Sahar Khoury, Whitney Shaw, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, and many others that live or have lived in the Bay Area. Many were old friends or at least drinking buddies. In many ways it looked like a family reunion.

Bob Linder with Julio Morales at the Queen’s Nails booth. Works by Jonathan Runcio, Jason Kalogiros, and Bessma Khalaf

Anyway, Auerbach and Jane are important practitioners of a kind of geometrical abstraction that is very popular today. But back in San Francisco, they were doing it ten years ago. So was Alicia McCarthy. From that perspective it was interesting to see them all together, because they have followed their own personal and artistic paths and yet have remained friends throughout. The fact that those disparate paths all led to New York is amazing and cool because it turns the trope of the “Old Boys’ Club” on its head.

Matt Heckert, Kal Spelletich and Brian Goggin having a post–art opening meal at a Lower East Side night spot

Speaking of the Old Boys’ Club, just about a month ago another Bay Area artist, Kal Spelletich, was in town for a group show called Weird Science that got reviewed in the New York Times. He was here along with Matt Heckert, Brian Goggin, and Achenbach Foundation curator, author, and all around raconteur Robert Flynn Johnson.

Like this past weekend it was also a Bay Area reunion—but from completely different social circles. At Weird Science, many people knew each other from Survival Research Labs, from RE/Search Publications, and from just around the Bay. At that opening I also ran into Marshall Weber, the founder of Booklyn, as well as Bobby Neel Adams, who photographed most of the images for RE/Search Publications’ most famous book, Modern Primitives.

Stephen Boyer reads from his new book, <i>Parasite,</i> at Williamsburg’s best bookstore, Spoonbill and Sugartown

But you hardly need to seek out Bay Area folks because they seem to just pop up unexpectedly. For example, the other night I just happened to see  poet Stephen Boyer, formerly of San Francisco, reading at the one of the best bookstores in New York—Spoonbill and Sugartown.

This bookstore, interestingly, is also a place I go specifically because they carry McSweeney’s books, the Believer, Maximumrocknroll, and a variety of zines and catalogs including those about Xylor Jane, Chris Johanson, Barry McGee, Todd Hido, etc. Also, despite the terrible economy and the vanishing art scene there, it has somehow managed to stay open in the hipster-dominated neighborhood of Williamsburg. It’s definitely the kind of place worth supporting.

Bob Dylan as a Cat missing his ear, dressed as Vincent Van Gogh. Graphic: Chris Cobb

I’m not the kind of cat that’s going to cut off an ear if I can’t do something.
Bob Dylan (musician and poet)

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?
Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher)

My house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature.
Anthony Bourdain (chef and author)

The order of the world is always right — such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin.
Jean Baudrillard (philosopher)

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
Groucho Marx (comedian)

I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
Abraham Lincoln (former U.S. president)

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain (writer)

A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.
William S. Burroughs (writer)

What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and dog food.
Anne McCaffrey (writer)

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.
Virginia Woolf (writer)

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
Robert A. Heinlein (writer)

I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.
Charles Baudelaire (French art critic and poet)

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” said Alice. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here.”
Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland)

It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
Deng Xiaoping (Chinese leader)

All day long the door of the subconscious remains just ajar; we slip through to the other side, and return again, as easily and secretly as a cat.
Walter de La Mare (English poet)

I’ve met many irresponsible people in my life but never an irresponsible cat.
Rita Mae Brown (author of Rubyfruit Jungle)

I do have 14 tattoos, but I also do come home every single night and watch reality TV with my cat.
Lea Michele (Glee actress)

One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home.
Pam Brown

When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web … Now even my cat has its own page.
Bill Clinton (former U.S. President)

Lana Del Rey seems to be bothering everybody because she allegedly “remade” herself from a folk singing, girl-next-door type into an electro-urban kitty cat on the prowl (of course I like her), and they feel she is inauthentic.
Liz Phair (singer)

It’s so French to be a cat person.
Melanie Laurent (French actress)

Always the cat remains a little beyond the limits we try to set for him in our blind folly.
Andre Norton (writer)

You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.
Jane Goodall (primatologist)

My first cat was named Cowboy, after the Dallas Cowboys.
Jenna Bush (George W. Bush’s daughter)

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.
Pablo Picasso (artist)

Every day, three times per second, we produce the equivalent of the amount of data that the Library of Congress has in its entire print collection, right? But most of it is like cat videos on YouTube or 13-year-olds exchanging text messages about the next Twilight movie.
Nate Silver (author and statistician)

Screenshot from the _New Republic_

I almost spilled coffee on myself yesterday when I read this bombastic headline in the New Republic: “How Occupy Changed Contemporary Art.” Then I laughed out loud.

It’s just that I die inside a little bit more each time when I read yet another “art review” written by someone purporting to be an authority on the subject. While I understand the impulse to write sensational headlines to promote someone, it’s just too much to take when that gets mixed together with the Occupy Wall Street rhetoric.

Somehow the article, which was supposed to be a review about New York illustrator Molly Crabapple, morphed into an attempt to elevate her as an example of a new “vanguard” of Occupy artists who favor vague things like democracy, fairness, and sharing. The reviewer goes on to claim that her using Etsy and Kickstarter is proof she is the real deal.

Sure, I can understand the author’s enthusiasm for Crabapple, an attractive former nude model and illustrator, but it’s hardly necessary to oversell her by claiming she is an avant-garde artist. By doing so the author inadvertently seeks false validation, implying it’s not OK for a woman to work as a nude model and that an attractive woman can’t get respect unless such lavish claims are made on her behalf.

Molly Crabapple surpassed her Kickstarter goal by $34,799.

Besides, according to Fastcompany, she hardly needs such blustery advocacy, noting that “at 29, Crabapple is making six figures a year — and she has for the past three years.”

Not to mention the fact she already raised almost $65,000 through Kickstarter for the show being reviewed, and it all went to her, because it’s her project — not to “the cause,” whatever that is. Yet the conflation of her and Occupy implies that by supporting Crabapple, you are supporting Occupy.

But sadly, it looks like yet another blatant marketing scheme capitalizing on the brand built by anticapitalists. How’s that for irony?

Of course she perpetuates all this artspeak nonsense on her Kickstarter page: “Your support in this project will help me cover the cost of creating spectacular art that’s meant for everyone to enjoy. And help me do it without asking the permission of rich people. Because art is awesome. And big, splashy, gold-encrusted, glittering things are awesome. But so is populism. I want to see how they look together. ….While I’m making Shell Game, I want you with me.”

Shell Game? Is this a con? Forgive me if I am not impressed. Since when did rich people need to give anyone permission to make art? She’s raised $65,000, AND she’s selling these paintings for thousands of dollars each. No joke. This is a SHELL GAME!

And then there’s this praise-filled article (complete with photo spread) from a style blog about her that deserves to be quoted at length:
“… Molly lives a post-impressionist fantasy as a successful artist herself in a loft in NYC, that is replete with chandeliers, paper lanterns, burlesque postures, plumes, and art everywhere. When Molly is home painting and sketching her ‘hyper-detailed surrealist Victorian pictures,’ she is in an embroidered silk robe, gold and pearl Rococo slippers, and might be obsessing over a pair of Alexander McQueen Gilly booties etched with almost medieval knot-work. But when out and about, like a 19th-century painting, Molly is in hourglass silhouettes, crinolines, crocheted gloves, veiled head pieces and other arcane accessories.”

Before Zuccotti Park was raided and Occupy Wall Street was pushed out of Lower Manhattan, hundreds of posters and signs were made by anonymous artists, few of whom ever got any kind of compensation for their time or artwork.

While I would never begrudge another artist making a living or having success, the New Republic article never thought to question the obvious contradictory elements of this whole marketing strategy. While she is getting her moment in the sun (see the Rolling Stone article + flattering photo here), the truth is that she lives in Lower Manhattan and her career was well under way long before the Occupy movement began. Fastcompany also quotes her saying, “What you get in this world doesn’t come from how much you ‘cultivate your talent’ but how much you ‘cultivate your name.’”

So come on, New Republic, be honest, is she really an example of someone who has “changed contemporary art” by fighting for “the cause”? I just don’t see it. If anything, the artist is just reinforcing the idea that financial success = artistic success.

In reality I’d say 99% of the “art” that came out of Occupy is agitprop. There’s nothing wrong with that, but why not call it what it is?

Chris Cobb, <em>Modern Scribble</em>, 2013

It’s easy to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall, it’s a painting. If you can walk around it, it’s a sculpture.

What do you get if you cross a painter with a boxer? Muhammad Dali.

What happened when a ship carrying red paint collided with a ship carrying blue paint? Both crews were marooned.

How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

Recently a guy in Paris nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre. However, after planning the crime, breaking in, evading security, getting out, and escaping with the goods, he was captured only two blocks away when his Econoline van ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied: “I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.”

How many visitors to an art gallery does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to do it and one to say, “Huh! My 4-year-old could’ve done that!”

The new impromptu spaces were a hit around the office, both with staff who immediately sensed their dubious provenance (a prankster in our midst!), and those who thought the spaces authentic. What began as a small, lighthearted joke turned into something real — one staffer’s Pilates ball made its way into the Exercise Lounge, and another staffer has been using the Meditation Room for his evening prayers since the night of its inception.

After a few days word had gotten around that, no, these space weren’t *officially* designated for meditating or yoga, leading other staff to join in the fun by declaring their own playful reclamations of these spaces.

So Snøhetta, if you’re reading this, please take note: the people have spoken! In our new building we’d like a place for contemplation and napping; and a place to stretch, practice our handstands, and the occasional human pyramid.  

First, during the Boston manhunt, CNN’s John King breathlessly reported the bomber was a dark-skinned male who had just been arrested. Of course, that went viral immediately. Unfortunately he was wrong — no arrests had been made at all, and the suspect was not dark-skinned.

Next up, the New York Post didn’t merely identify the wrong men as the bombers, it put them on the cover! The “BAG MEN” became instantly famous. But again, neither of them was the bomber. In fact one of the guys, Salah Barhoun, was actually a high school student who wasn’t even from Boston.

So whatever happened to fact-checking, getting multiple sources to confirm information — oh, and journalistic ethics? Don’t those things matter anymore?

Apparently not when it comes to scooping the competition. Shortly after the Post cover, the New York Daily News ran a cover showing a street awash with blood, but it Photoshopped out the gash on the woman’s leg where the blood was coming from. Supposedly it was OK to show the person’s agony, the violence, the horror, but not the wound? Talkingpointsmemo.com reported that, when “reached for comment this morning, a News spokesperson would only say: ‘The Daily News does not comment on its editorial decision-making.’ ” How’s that for integrity?

These are major news outlets, and they should know better than to alter news photographs.

According to the LA Times, “forums like Reddit and 4chan were alive with speculation — based on little or no evidence — that the culprits were Muslim fundamentalists or perhaps right-wing extremists.” But who needs proof when you are on Facebook or Twitter? There’s no law against gossip and rumor.

And there was also the case of a Brown University student, Sunil Tripathi, who was the focus of speculation after Reddit users misidentified him as the potential bomber in the white baseball cap.

For days everyone in the known universe was searching their Twitter feeds and scanning Facebook pages thinking that a friend of a friend of a friend might be the bomber. More importantly people wanted to feel they were getting the news first!

Worst of all, there were so many conflicting leaks by so many overlapping law enforcement agencies, it should have been obvious that bad information was getting out. For example, for about 24 hours police had been claiming the actual alleged bombers had robbed a 7-Eleven store. They had pictures. Well, it turns out they didn’t rob the store. Did anybody think to follow up to see if there was an actual robbery or who it was that committed it?

It’s no secret that the police will deliberately mislead the media if they feel it helps their cause. They do it as a matter of policy. If anyone paid attention to all of the intentional falsehoods spread about Occupy Wall Street activists, it’s clear enough it’s no accident that willful mistruths are fed to the media.

While it’s right to vigorously report on major events like the search for mad bombers, terrorists, murderers, and the like, it’s also crucial that news media reports are accurate. Is that too much to ask?

I was walking on the grounds of the public library and it was that time of year when all the leaves turn different colors. Right then I decided to gather some of them, organize them, then walk away.