Dec 6, 2009
Marina Abramović’s 2009 piece The Kitchen I—Homage to Saint Therese More-interesting-than-you-might-think musings on performance art by James Franco, yes the one that was in Spiderman: I was instructed to kiss a napkin that had been printed with a square of gold powder that would transfer to my face before eating the dessert. This way the dessert would pass through a golden gateway before it was ingested. I did as told, then suggested to the chef that it needed more chili. Was this art? As Ms. Abramović told me over our dessert tasting, performance art is all about context. “If you bake some bread in a museum space it becomes art, but if you do it at home you’re a baker.” Likewise, when I wear green makeup and fly across a rooftop in “Spider-Man 3,” I’m working as an actor, but were I to do the same thing on the subway platform, a host of possibilities would open up. Playing the Green Goblin in the subway would no longer be about creating the illusion that I am flying. It would be about inserting myself in a familiar space in such a way that it becomes stranger than fiction, along the lines of what I’m doing on “General Hospital.” He seems to be teasing that if anything in the right context can be art, can his performance as an artist on the soap opera General Hospital be some kind of meta-art? I’m almost inclined to say no, but sure, whatever. James Franco on General Hospital and Performance Art - WSJ.com

Marina Abramović’s 2009 piece The Kitchen I—Homage to Saint Therese

More-interesting-than-you-might-think musings on performance art by James Franco, yes the one that was in Spiderman:

I was instructed to kiss a napkin that had been printed with a square of gold powder that would transfer to my face before eating the dessert. This way the dessert would pass through a golden gateway before it was ingested. I did as told, then suggested to the chef that it needed more chili. Was this art?

As Ms. Abramović told me over our dessert tasting, performance art is all about context. “If you bake some bread in a museum space it becomes art, but if you do it at home you’re a baker.” Likewise, when I wear green makeup and fly across a rooftop in “Spider-Man 3,” I’m working as an actor, but were I to do the same thing on the subway platform, a host of possibilities would open up. Playing the Green Goblin in the subway would no longer be about creating the illusion that I am flying. It would be about inserting myself in a familiar space in such a way that it becomes stranger than fiction, along the lines of what I’m doing on “General Hospital.”

He seems to be teasing that if anything in the right context can be art, can his performance as an artist on the soap opera General Hospital be some kind of meta-art? I’m almost inclined to say no, but sure, whatever.

James Franco on General Hospital and Performance Art - WSJ.com

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