James Franco
James Franco
1984-1990, 2006
Acrylic on canvas
60 in. x 120 in. / 152.4 cm. x 304.8 cm.
“Artists are no longer like Wordsworth walking around the hills looking for inspiration; flowers and trees are not our experience; mass media creates our shared experience.” —James Franco
James Franco (b. 1978) is an actor, filmmaker, writer, designer, and artist based in Los Angeles. After completing his bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA in June 2008, Franco simultaneously enrolled in four MFA programs, earning degrees in fiction writing from Brooklyn College; filmmaking from Columbia University and New York University, Tisch; new media from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD); and poetry from Warren Wilson College. Notably, Franco continued his literature education, enrolling in Yale’s English PhD program and the University of Houston’s Creative Writing PhD program.
In August 2010, James Franco, RISD professor Francisco J. Ricardo, and Gus Van Sant taught the first MoMA PS1 “Summer School,” a laboratory workshop based on the European summer academy model. This led to a 2011 two-person exhibition, “James Franco and Gus Van Sant: Unfinished,” at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. The same summer, Franco’s first solo show, “James Franco: The Dangerous Book Four Boys,” opened at New York’s Clocktower Gallery and traveled to Berlin’s Peres Projects. It was here that Franco began utilizing the autobiographical themes that have continued to influence all aspects of his work.
Throughout the aughts, Franco collaborated with John Carter to create the short film Erased, and also with Douglas Gordon, Harmony Korine, Damon McCarthy, Paul McCarthy, Terry Richardson, Ed Ruscha, and Aaron Young to mount two Rebel Without a Cause-themed shows.
His next shows included the Hitchcock-inspired “Psycho Nacirema” at Pace London (2013); “New Film Stills” at Pace New York (2014), an homage to Cindy Sherman; a collaboration with Kalup Linzy at Bob Rauschenberg Gallery (2017); and the autobiographical “Pipe Brothers: Tom and James Franco” at Arizona State University Art (2017). In 2024, Franco unveiled his latest series, Hollywood is Hell, at Galerie Gmurzynska in Zürich, which combined collage and autobiography to create a portrait of Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Courtesy of the artist and Rabbit Bandini Productions LLC, and Galerie Gmurzynska (@gmurzynska)
This artwork is under temporary admission from Switzerland.
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