The artists first collaborated on Rebel, an exhibition presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2012. In Rebel, Franco acted as a producer for Gordon, while in this exhibition Gordon has acted as a curator and teacher for Franco.
He's turning into a bit of a renaissance man Hollywood actor James Franco will be showing off his multimedia skills when Pace Gallery in London exhibits the actor's latest multimedia installation Psycho Nacirema. Curated by Scottish artist Douglas Gordon this June until August will be on view to general public, the actor's first major exhibition in the UK
Psycho Nacirema presents a mise-en-scène of director Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller Psycho, remodelling the infamous Bates Motel where the intrigue of the film takes place, intertwined with the 1920’s Arbuckle scandal.
In Psycho Nacirema, James Franco uses the motel structure as both a physical and literal framework,
reinterpreting iconic scenes from the original film through evocative details such as the motel neon signage or the infamous shower room where the film character Marion Crane, is murdered.One of Gordon’s most well-known works is 24 Hour Psycho (1993), a projection of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film slowed down to last an entire day which also sparked inspiration for the exhibition
Franco’s installations heighten the psychological entrapment set out by Hitchcock, beckoning the audience to become a participating character within the plot. Split Marion, 2013 a diptych mirror installation, prompts the viewer to join the artist to gaze and be gazed upon, projecting themselves as the characters of Marion Crane and Norman Bates. Compelled to identify with them, the audience is forced to recognise their own neurosis and psychological inadequacies generated by the silver-screen.
Psycho Nacirema makes numerous trans-historical juxtapositions. Principally using Hitchcock’s film as a starting reference, Franco twists it together with the real-life scandal of Fatty Arbuckle, the Hollywood star and first one-million-dollar paid actor charged with the death of the American model and silent film actress Virginia Rappe in September 1921. The Arbuckle case was filled with murky evidence and media speculations which shed a harsh light on the cinema industry.
Franco’s fascination with the subject leads to the final room of the exhibition. A four-way projected film which shows the re-enactment of the scenario that supposedly took place in Room 1219 where Arbuckle was found with Rappe who was mysteriously injured and distressed. Marrying the Psycho thriller with the Arbuckle scandal, the exhibition performs interplay of reality with fiction, compelling the viewers to address how cinema is entrenched in the modern collective consciousness.
“Film is the medium that employs all art forms, but it is contained within the screen. We take this multi-form idea and pull it through the screen, so that the different forms are once again fully dimensional and a new nexus of interaction and significance is created. In this show, we go back to the original locations and images of Psycho and alter them so that once again the viewer's relationship with the material changes. One becomes an actor when interacting with this work. Film becomes raw material and is sculpted into new work.” James Franco, May 2013.
Psycho Nacirema will be accompanied by a catalogue that features a discussion between both artists and Russell Ferguson, Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programmes and Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Psycho Nacirema will be on view at Pace London, 6-10 Lexington Street, from 6 June to 3 August.
More information on the event can be found here at pacegallery.com
All Images from Psycho Nacirema © 2013, James Franco, courtesy Pace Gallery
