James Franco

[Lokasenna]

For the purpose of showing what James Franco is up against in the showbiz world, have a look at some of the painting by everyone's favourite threatening Welshman, Sir Anthony Hopkins:

Renaissance Man: Anthony Hopkins

Sorry about the naffness of the link - the Guardian was the best source I could find for some of his art. Now, I'm no expert on art, but I would rather have one of Sir Anthony's works hanging above the fireplace than anything of James Franco. They seem much more aesthetically pleasing, and of a much higher artistic calibre.

[FROADS]

^ I dig Hopkins's paintings. I'd buy one.

How old was James Franco when he created those pieces? Really awful. You could cross off painter from his Renaissance profile.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I like Hopkin's stuff. Very cool looking. Still, not something I'd buy. I know the "I could do it" argument is a stupid one (as in he did it and I didn't so it's irrelevant), but, personally, I like art that is something I couldn't do on a technical level. I could do those.

The thing with Franco's stuff is that it's been done before, a long, long time ago. Plus, in my opinion, an artist needs to establish that he has good technical ability before he does crap like that. I have a suspicious feeling that Franco's full ability might be on display.

[stlukesguild]

Following WWII there was a movement toward an extremely crude, brutal, art that rejected any appearance of artfulness, sophistication, or aesthetic finesse. Not unlike the similar Dada movement following WWI, the aim was to reject anything that bespoke of the culture that had allowed for the horrors of the recently ended war. Artists embraced the look of graffiti, childrens art, and the art of the mentally ill. Painters such as Karel Appel, a member of the CoBrA (Coppenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) produced paintings that made Picasso's work appear polished and sophisticated:



Jean Dubuffet may have been the central figure of the "brutal" art style known as "Art Brut", a term he coined. Dubuffet rejected all that spoke of fine art to him... even Picasso, Matisse, and Modernism. Instead he collected the art of "outsiders": the mentally ill and handicapped and the self-taught... his collection eventually forming the basis for the first museum of "outsider art":



In the 1980s, a young, upper-middle-class black artist by the name of Jean-Michel Basquiat began to gain notoriety for a body of work which built upon the Art Brut of Dubbuffet, the graffiti of New York City, and the raw energy and anger of Hip Hop culture. Basquiat was soon embraced by the bottom feeders of the art world (Andy Warhol, Mary Boone, etc...) as the "great black hope". Fame and all that came with it (money, sex, drugs, sycophants) came too fast for Basquiat who rapidly became addicted to heroin and began churning out endless paintings to multiple dealers to feed his habit (One, Mary Boone, reportedly locked him in her basement for a period where she kept him supplied with food, water, and heroin in return for a steady flow of paintings!!!). As might be expected, Basquiat died well before his time from a drug overdose.





Basquiat had an undeniable energy... his handling of line was tense and quirky. His imagery was playfully laden with both visual and verbal puns and he had a clear eye for color and composition. What he lacked was the time needed to fully develop as an artist. In spite of this, the art world canonized him... whether out of guilt... or out of the desire to cash in on the artist who had been marketed as the great voice of urban black America. Critiv Robert Hughes wryly wrote of the manner in which the dealers portrayed Basquiat as a martyr: St. John-Michael (Jean-Michel) in his essay, Requiem for a Featherweight.

Franco's paintings are clearly pastiches of Basquiat's work... so much so that they might easily be mistaken for one of his paintings. Basquait... whatever his weaknesses... at least had an original look. There is no way that one might confuse his paintings with those of his artistic heroes: Dubuffet, Warhol, etc... Sadly, this is not so of Franco. I have even less respect for Franco when I consider that in spite of his limited experience as an artist he has rushed to embrace the style of an artist that is less than demanding. In other words... most serious artists go through the motions of learning to draw and paint academically... to a certain extent... before running off to abstraction of crude expressionism. This training allows the artist to see the formal structure that exists... even in the most apparent abstract and chaotic paintings.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Even the though two latter paintings you show are look a lot like Franco's work, these still seem much more interesting for some indefinable reason.

[Brock]

Franco's paintings are clearly pastiches of Basquiat's work... so much so that they might easily be mistaken for one of his paintings. Basquait... whatever his weaknesses... at least had an original look. There is no way that one might confuse his paintings with those of his artistic heroes: Dubuffet, Warhol, etc... Sadly, this is not so of Franco. I have even less respect for Franco when I consider that in spite of his limited experience as an artist he has rushed to embrace the style of an artist that is less than demanding. In other words... most serious artists go through the motions of learning to draw and paint academically... to a certain extent... before running off to abstraction of crude expressionism. This training allows the artist to see the formal structure that exists... even in the most apparent abstract and chaotic paintings.

I am not claiming to know a lot about art here at all, hence the reason why I'm slightly confused. There seems - to me, at least - little sense in the claim that you need to 'go through the motions of learning to draw and paint academically' before doing something like what Franco has done. That would be similar to saying that you need to study the 'classic' poets in order to attempt poetry, or like saying that to play jazz influenced extreme noisecore, you first NEED to learn the staple ideas of music theory and the rudiments of time signatures. Why? I think I am right in saying that it has been known that musicians often create 7/4 rhythms without even knowing what a 4/4 rhythm is. Is this wrong? What if I decide to cook a really 'abstract' curry and I've no idea of how a normal curry is cooked? Does it somewhere make the 'abstractness' of the curry invalid, simply because I haven't bothered making the effort to understand the techniques of traditional curry-making beforehand? Do I really need to know the formal structures that exist? Why? Wouldn't it be better if I didn't?

What I'm getting at (silly analogies aside), is that we shouldn't snub Franco's art because we collectively agree that it looks dreadful here and now. Remember Alan Ginsberg's Howl? And how it was deemed by literature professors as not even passing as literature because it didn't fit with their ideals? Because it was a 'pastiche' of an earlier piece of literature that was considered somehow literature? Similar, you might say, to how Franco's art is a 'pastiche' of Pisquiat's art? (It is a mere (albeit fitting) coincidence that Franco actually plays the part of Ginsberg in the film Howl.)

I'm going to stick my neck out now. I, for one, admire Franco's art. I think if we stop looking at it in the 'even I could do that' and just look at it as an expression, as patterns, colours, emotions, words in images, as freedom, unconstrained, it might have more of an effect on us. It's art. In this sense, it's no longer Franco's career you're looking at. It's not something related to a backlog of art history and art theory. It's art. And why does an 'artist' have to be 'serious' in order to create art?

(PS, I'm not having a go at you stlukesguild! I am aware that you obviously know a lot more than I do about this sort of thing; I just happen to appreciate Franco's art quite a bit.)

[Cunninglinguist]

His paintings are laughably horrible.

http://james-franco.com/james/art-gallery/

I laughed so hard I lost my whole wardrobe of underpants. Yes, I do have more than 1 pair of underpants; that's just how bad his paintings are.

I most enjoy the one with the school bus in it.

[chipper]

i don't see it as laughably horrible. it's not for everyone but it's not horrible.

[Gregory Samsa]

It's horrible.

[cyberbob]

I think Franco is a medioce actor, but if he wants to be well-educated, I respect that.

Too many celebs now who are dumb as ****, think their opinions on politics and other subjects besides that of their profession are important because of their fame.

At least Franco is genuinely willing to educate himself, and doesn't seem to want to shove his views down people's throats like Sean Penn, George Clooney, Robert Redford, etc.

[Propter W.]

I don't like his "paintings", but then again, there's lots of art that is highly praised by the experts that I find absolutely horrible, ridiculous and worthless.

James Franco did a great job in 127 hours. In fact, it's one of the best performances I've seen this year.

[Alexander III]

I think Franco is a medioce actor, but if he wants to be well-educated, I respect that.

Too many celebs now who are dumb as ****, think their opinions on politics and other subjects besides that of their profession are important because of their fame.

At least Franco is genuinely willing to educate himself, and doesn't seem to want to shove his views down people's throats like Sean Penn, George Clooney, Robert Redford, etc.

Actually his role as James Dean in the biopic James Dean is absolutely brilliant. He doesn't have respect as an actor because the majority of his roles are light hearted fluff, but he definitely is a good actor. Of course he is no Colin Firth or DiCaprio...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I think he's a good actor that has done some great roles and will probably do more. He's no Daniel Day-Lewis, though.