wanderlust

His Shit Don’t Stank: Celebrating the Graduate Degrees of James Franco

If you’ve been following James Franco’s career as religiously as I have, you’d know it’s about as unpredictable as the rankings for the top five MFA programs in the country. But alas, it appears as if the starlet is finally gaining focus and maturity in his work as his new performance art piece,“Bird Shit,” premiers at MoMa PS1’s newest location in Far Rockaway: The PS1 VW Geodesic Dome. And if you’re a real self-proclaimed art fanatic that’s looking for something a bit more exclusive, how about a gallery that doesn’t even have an address––just a cryptic location that’s tucked away in a parking lot between two boulevards in one of the most remote parts of Brooklyn? This is definitely the place for you.

 

2008: James Franco graduates from UCLA after reenrolling from a long academic hiatus; B.A. in English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing


Birds Dropping Bombs


Originally created to support the areas in New York City devastated most by Hurricane Sandy, MoMA’s new location promises to serve as a cultural beacon by bringing in events and performances that will increase tourism and help rebuild the community. And with Franco’s hands already far extended into acting, academia and the absurd, it’s no wonder that this film star has now dug his fingernails into the world of philanthropic performance art.


2009: Franco moves to New York to simultaneously take courses at Columbia University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Brooklyn College, and Warren Wilson College (NC)


“Bird Shit” promises to host a wide array of up-and-coming, multi-media talent including music from Nina Ljeti, choreographer Chloe Kernaghan, and graduate film students from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Joshua Richards, Zach Kershberg and Tine Thomasen. The performance itself conflates visual and thematic elements from Chekhov’s “The Seagull” and Allen Ginsberg’s “Kaddish” in a sensationalist spectacle containing as little narrative as it does intentional forethought. Franco’s “Bird Shit” is also followed by a performance of his original inspiration for the piece, The Seagull. His reinterpretation takes liberties to experiment with writerly edits that forcefully insert additional references of death and mourning into Checkov’s original play.

 

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