James Franco: Gay Town at Peres Projects Berlin

Gay Town is American actor, filmmaker, writer and artist James Franco’s second solo show in Berlin with the gallery Peres Projects. The exhibition that is presented in a temporary project space on the historic Karl-Marx-Allee 87 explores a variety of themes that are central to James Franco’s artistic practice: adolescence, public and private persona, stereotypes, and celebrity. The artist created most of the works for the show over the past two years. He created many of the works in temporary locations such as hotel rooms whilst completing other projects, mainly motion pictures. In this video we attend the opening reception of the exhibition, and gallerist Javier Peres talks about how he and James Franco developed the idea for the exhibition and the basic concept of the show.

Peres Projects regards Gay Town as one of James Franco’s most ambitious installations to date. For Gay Town, James Franco uses a mix of different media including painting, drawing, film, video, sculpture, and photography. The result is an exhibition that is very much autobiographical. As Javier Peres explains:

“All these works are ultimately very autobiographical. With this show one of the things that James was really exploring was the different things that are happening in his life as he is going through them and he’s depicting them in either in film, in the videos, or in the paintings, or even in the blankets. The blankets are all based on drawings that he makes, or collages or fan art or whatever. So it’s all stuff that is happening contemporaneously that he’s experiencing. The whole idea of the show, was to show this aspect of his life. It’s very much like a self portrait.”

James Franco was born in Palo Alto, California, in 1978. He is a successful actor, filmmaker, author and artist. Selected exhibitions include The Dangerous Book Four Boys, Peres Projects, Berlin, and Freeks and Geeks, Air de Paris, Paris. He portrayed Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and starred as Aron Ralston in 127 Hours. In 2011, he directed The Broken Tower. He earned several Golden Globes and was Nominee for Best Actor in a Leading Role for 127 Hours.

James Franco’s exhibition Gay Town runs until March 9th, 2013. On March 1st 2013 Peres Projects will open its new gallery space on Karl-Marx-Allee 82 with a solo exhibition by David Ostrowski entitled ‘I’m OK.’ Moments later, he was shot.

James Franco: Gay Town at Peres Projects Berlin, temporary projects space Karl-Marx-Allee 87. Opening, February 9th, 2013. Video by Frantisek Zachoval.

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