The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), taped a special episode of ABC’s Emmy Award–winning daytime drama General Hospital on the occasion of the return of character Franco the artist, played by artist and actor James Franco, on the Pacific Design Plaza next to MOCA Pacific Design Center. Conceived by James Franco as part of a performance work titled SOAP at MOCA: James Franco on General Hospital, the taping was observed by a select live audience. This special episode will commence on ABC on Thursday, July 22, 3pm EST/2pm PST.
In this special episode, Franco, James Franco’s character from General Hospital, had an exhibition at MOCA Pacific Design Center, during which time Jeffrey Deitch, the new director of MOCA, and the characters from Port Charles from General Hospital made their West Coast debut. The character’s exhibition included full-scale models of the locations in which he encountered mobster Jason Morgan (Emmy winner Steve Burton). To the musical accompaniment of his artistic collaborator Kalup Dashinel, played by critically acclaimed video and performance artist Kalup Linzy, who performed live during the taping, Franco attempted to lure Jason and others into his art-trap. If all goes to plan, mastermind Franco will turn both Jason Morgan’s life and his own death into art, a performance to end all performances.
“Soap at MOCA is an attempt to both blur and define the lines between different disciplines, between life and art, between art and popular culture, and between representations of the self as both performative character and as non-performative self,” commented James Franco.
“James Franco’s collaboration with MOCA through SOAP at MOCA: James Franco on General Hospital allows mass entertainment to be viewed through an art world filter. Franco’s artwork examines performance: it looks at the multiple levels of identity that are wound into performance; the legitimacy of some performance over others; the contextualization of performance; and how this changes perception and even the nature of performance. SOAP at MOCA: James Franco on General Hospital involves multiple levels of documentation and presentation,” said MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch.
James Franco has been acting in films for 14 years. He has been a painter for over 20 years. In high school he was arrested for tagging. He is a graduate film student at NYU and studies poetry at Warren Wilson College. He has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Brooklyn College.
www.moca.org
