Why It’s So Risky to Move Your Art

The most robust art security systems involve multiple safeguards against loss—when put on the road, those layers disappear

By Anthony Amore • 07/07/17 7:03am

 
 
 
 

‘Paradigm,’ 2007, aluminum (found beer cans) by Sculptor Paul Villinski. Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Paul Villinski’s sculptures, made from reclaimed items he finds perusing the streets of New York, combine intricate design with large-scale works. They’re striking, visually alluring works are hard to miss and harder to forget.

It’s little wonder, then, that the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia, is hosting an exhibition featuring the artist’s works. But in June, something happenedon the road from Villinski’s New York City studio to Roanoke.

After components for the exhibition’s signature piece, Flower Bomber, were loaded aboard the shipping truck hired to transport it to the Taubman, the vehicle was stolen right out from under the artist’s nose. It was a devastating loss for Villinsky and for the exhibition. Flower Bomber is a broad, stunning work, using wood and fiberglass to depict a large-scale B-52 bomber dropping laser-cut aluminum flowers from its bay. In its stead, the Taubman displayed another Villinski aircraft in its atrium. Titled Passage, the replacement sculpture is a large wooden glider covered with one thousand butterflies.

The artist estimated the value of his loss at $358,000, but the opportunity cost of losing the centerpiece of his important exhibition was much higher. It was a dastardly art heist, or so it seemed. Just days later, Villinski received happy news from Penske, the owner of the rental truck. The abandoned vehicle’s OnStar system alerted them to its location in Brooklyn. And the news got even better: Flower Bomber was still inside. It seems that the artwork wasn’t the target of the thieves at all. Instead, the truck was taken as part of a different sort of crime—illegal dumping. According to police, box trucks are often stolen, loaded with trash and debris (in this case, old tires), and abandoned far from where they were loaded.

Flower Bomber was recovered with just a minor damage that the artist might simply leave in place. It will join Villinski’s other works at the Taubman a bit late, but none the worse for the wear.

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The initial reports of the theft sounded like a one-off; some odd method of stealing valuable art outside of the typical museum or gallery theft. But the fact is that art in transit is actually quite vulnerable. Indeed, there have been a number of notable thefts of art from vehicles transporting pieces to shows around the world. Perhaps the most infamous robbery took place in 2006, when a 1778 work titled Children with a Cart by Francisco de Goya destined for the Guggenheim was stolen from a transport truck that was parked overnight outside a Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, hotel.

The painting was recovered by the FBI less than two weeks later. Though the details of the recovery weren’t revealed—something not unusual in art recovery operations—there was rampant speculation that an insider must have been involved. How else, the reasoning went, could anyone have known the contents of the truck? But that hypothesis ignored the simpler scenario: the thieves merely broke into the truck willing to take whatever valuables they could get their hands on, whether it be shaving razors, televisions, or other easy-to-fence items. And when they found that they had taken something almost impossible to move—a highly valuable, highly recognizable painting—they were eager to simply return it without paying a penalty proportionate to their unintended take.

While these sorts of incidents would lead one to think that art in transit is only at risk of inadvertent pilfering, the simple fact remains that when valuable art is taken out of secured institutions and sent on its way, it is incredibly vulnerable. This is because the most robust art security systems involve multiple layers of safeguards against loss. When art is removed from these settings and put on the road, many of those layers disappear.

Take, for instance, this weird historical quirk: the artist who has seen the highest number of his works stolen is Nick Lawrence. Talented, but hardly the household name like the others at the top of this unfortunate list, Lawrence saw 557 of his works go missing virtually at once, when they were moved without his permission from the location where they had been stored. It is unclear what happened to the works once they were taken off-site.

More recently, three hooded thieves in Madrid knew exactly what they were doing when they stole a truck filled with 28 paintings, including works by Picasso, Fernando Botero, and Eduardo Chillida, from a warehouse.

Though lending institutions always seek insurance when loaning a valuable piece to another museum for a show, the protocol for securing the works can be as varied as the works themselves. It’s not unusual, for instance, for the transport company’s truck to be marked with its corporate name—a clear indicator to knowing thieves that art is in tow. Further, it would be a mistake to assume that the drivers and their partners are armed. They aren’t trained security personnel; they’re trained art handlers.

Fortunately, responsible art institutions often use a “chase car” for the more valuable works. This ensures that the art handlers go where they are supposed to, and that should something nefarious happen, an extra set of eyes are available to track movement until law enforcement can arrive. Clearly, the future of art transit security will rely heavily on small, hard-to-detect GPS devices in the moving trucks and in the packing equipment. Thieves might be able to make a quick getaway, but they can’t outrun a satellite.

For the moment, at least, moving art is still a risky business, and while museums hire full-time staff who handle all the preparations for art in transit, things still go awry. So one can imagine that for a private collector who generously loans a piece of art, the risk is even greater. More worrisome yet is that homeowner’s insurance doesn’t necessarily cover art loaned from a personal collection and stolen in transit. Since most art is stolen from homes—not museums—private collectors must be especially vigilant when allowing their works to be moved from one location to another.

After all, the odds are slim that if your stolen Matisse is taken, it will simply be found untouched in a truck filled worn out tires.

Anthony Amore is an internationally recognized expert in the field of art crime. His experience includes serving as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s chief investigator into the world’s largest art theft, and in leadership roles with the Department of Homeland Security. He has published two books and is on Twitter @anthony_m_amore. 

Features / Art

Eduardo Paolozzi: on a singular teacher and his devil-may-care philosophy

Words by Billie Muraben, Tuesday 11 July 2017

Words:

Billie Muraben

Images:

Jamie Stoker

“It’s the one with the red motorcycle outside” said David Queensberry as he gave directions to his west London home. The former head of ceramics at the Royal College of Art, and trustee of The Paolozzi Foundation had agreed to meet to reminisce on Paolozzi’s time as a tutor at the RCA, after we were introduced by Neil Parkinson, the college’s archivist.
His house is dotted with masterworks, from archive Paolozzi sculptures, to maquettes, ceramics and prints that adorn the walls of almost every room; as well as his own ceramics, and a vast collection of antique and contemporary pieces. “When we returned to photograph his collection of Paolozzi’s work, there were recently returned pieces from the Whitechapel show, leant against sofa cushions, beside fruit bowls on the dining table and stacked behind a doll’s house and pile of books.”
As Aristotle the cat splayed himself prominently across an Eames footstool, we sat with cups of tea in Paolozzi mugs, and Queensberry started at the beginning. “It just so happened that Eduardo, who was a rather famous artist by then, was also one of my best friends. So I said to him, ‘What do you think about working for a bit at the college? It’s a nice environment, and you can do your own thing there’. He said yes, so he shipped up and started coming in. He had a glorious presence, some people found him rather difficult, other people, quite magical.”

In 1959, when David Queensberry was appointed head of ceramics at the RCA, the college had been through an overhaul of approach. “Since 1948, when Robert Darwin took over as rector, there was a drive to go back to its roots and be primarily concerned with design,” Queensberry explains. With his appointment came the decision that “this ought to change, the college’s approach to ceramics should be on a wider spectrum. From pre-Ice Age figurative sculpture, to mugs and high technology ceramics; as well as works that didn’t have any umbilical connection with a pot – objects, or artworks.” The design part Queensberry could handle. “I had great experience in the industry, but we were taking on these students who needed something else.” That’s where, and when, Eduardo Paolozzi came in.
“Eduardo wouldn’t give traditional advice. He wouldn’t say ‘Why does the handle on that cup have such a pedestrian angle?’ Instead he’d ask ‘Why do you need a handle on a cup at all? The Japanese don’t.’ He’d bring in portfolios full of the collage material he’d been working with, and hand it out to people. He could be very, very good for certain students, he was like a conjurer, he could pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
Paolozzi would invite students for dinner at the Meridiana, a now long gone Italian restaurant in South Kensington, where “he had given the guy all these sculptures for their terrace, in exchange for unlimited credit at the restaurant. We’d have a huge table, the students would be wined and dined, and sometimes things would go a bit wrong – he had quite a short attention span, and if he got bored with things, he’d leave abruptly.”
A regular guest at the Meridiana, was product designer Robin Levien, a former student and assistant of Paolozzi’s. Levien recalls: “He was one of my tutors, but tutor in an unconventional sense. We didn’t have formal meetings or tutorials, it was more that he was around. There was one occasion where Paolozzi told a student, ‘Come and see me at my studio at Dove House Street tomorrow’, she said ‘Fine, what time should I come?’ And he told her to arrive at 8am, probably quite provocatively to suggest she ought to be up early if she wants to be a serious artist. So she arrives at 8am, presses the buzzer and just as the door opens, three dwarves came out. When she arrived upstairs, nothing was said.”

 

“I always thought of Eduardo of a bit of an enigma, he’d be giving things away all the time, but it was surprisingly difficult to give him anything”

– Robin Levien

“I always thought of Eduardo of a bit of an enigma, he’d be giving things away all the time, but it was surprisingly difficult to give him anything,” Levien continues. “It was a way of keeping everybody at a distance – it adds a performative quality to relationships – and it kept him in control” says Levien. “I got to know him reasonably well, because he was interested in my work. He offered to buy some a few weeks before my degree show, and I said: ‘Eduardo, OK, but I’d rather see how things go at the show before saying yes’. And unlike my BA show, I didn’t sell anything – it was all a bit academic, a bit cerebral – so afterwards I asked if he’d still be interested in buying my work, and Eduardo said: ‘No, too late.’ It was a great lesson about not looking a gift-horse in the mouth…”
After graduating, Levien returned to the RCA to assist David Queensberry, who ran his ceramics business from the college. “I was still around a bit, and so was Eduardo, and on one day I came back from a job interview with Terence Conran, which Queensberry had recommended me for, and was telling Eduardo about it. All he said was: ‘Another one of my failures’, which was really his sense of humour. Eduardo had taught Terence at the Central, I suppose it was because he had gone into design and not art.”
“Eduardo would be in the interviews, as would some of the students. There was one occasion where, after the interviewee had left, he just remarked: ‘Evening class, not collected.’ It doesn’t get worse than that, does it? He was very sharp, very succinct”, recalls Levien. “He had a wicked streak too. There was one occasion when he bet a girl in my year £100 to streak around the Albert Hall, and that was a lot of money in the 70s. So half the ceramics department went down to the lobby, she took off her coat and ran, and when she came back to the double doors, he wouldn’t open them! He did give her the £100, though.”
That wicked streak ran through to his dealings with the art world, “When he had the Tate exhibition in 1971, which had probably been his biggest show to date, he suddenly became popular on another level”, says Levien. “The story goes that a couple of rich American women came to his studio – and a lot of the things he was doing at the time were tables with objects on top. He would make the works in wax and if someone wanted to buy one, it would be cast in bronze – and these women were gushing about how fabulous everything was, ‘We love it, it looks so great’ [said in a fittingly exaggeratedly gushy American accent], and then they got around to the price. I don’t remember the exact figures, it might have been something like, ‘it’s £10K’, at which point they said: ‘Oh dear, Eduardo, that’s a little more than we’d really want to spend’. So he took a couple of steps back, went at it, and kicked a lump of wax off the top of the work. ‘OK, that’ll be £8K’, he said. He might as well have just kicked them right up the backside.”

“‘OK, that’ll be £8K’, he said. He might as well have just kicked them right up the backside.”

Robin Levien

“He never really had a good relationship with an art dealer”, remarks Queensberry, “he was suspicious of them. Of course, it didn’t help him. He was prolific, and varied, there’s no obvious theme, and in a lot of ways, Eduardo’s work is difficult. He stood for something different. His work is alarming, the opposite to decorative,” he says. “A lot of work was left unsigned, and he was always giving it away – no good keeping it in the drawer forever.”
One such instance led to a strange incident involving the exhibition of a series of erotic collages, supposedly attributed to Paolozzi. “Francis Morland, who was a sort-of wannabe artist in the 50s, had latched on to Eduardo,” remembers Queensberry. “He was quite rich – his family ran a business that made sheepskin coats in the West Country – and he built a primitive foundry, in which he made primitive castings. He then went on to get heavily involved with drugs, spending eight years in prison in America when he was apprehended with a massive haul while sailing his yacht.”
“Then about two years ago, a London gallery held an exhibition of Paolozzi’s erotic art. And I, not only I, but a lot of us were pretty bloody sure that he didn’t do it. Not with a view to protecting him, but just on an analytical basis of what we knew he had done. I was Popzi’s best friend, somebody would’ve seen it, something, ‘Just a joke David’, anything. But there was nothing,” he remarks.
“We then started to analyse the work and were convinced that Francis Morland had done them. We knew that Eduardo had given him a lot of collage material he had used, so Morland would have had a lot of stuff. But the big issue was the signature, Eduardo would often leave his work unsigned. But we got them in the end, the auction houses wouldn’t take them and the gallery had to refund their sales, so we did succeed there.”
Paolozzi had a knack for attracting eclectic groups of people. “He had a way – he was not a social climber at all, people found him rather interesting. He seemed from another world, and he was hugely likeable”, remembers Queensberry. “He was curiously childlike, in a way,” says Levien. “Life was entertaining and amusing with Eduardo, he had a fantastic group of people around him, and he’d invite you along to parties. He’d take the role of entertainer, and whether it was all totally genuine or there was an element of bullshit there I don’t know. But I’d forgive him that. You make allowances – never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

 

Nicole Fahri met Paolozzi when she was casting her first sculpture work at the RCA’s foundry. “He came around next to me and we started chatting. He invited me to his studio, then he came to see me at home, and little by little, we became very close friends”, she recalls, as we settled down to talk in her studio, which is sheltered among the trees at the far end of her garden.
Fahri had been taking classes with the sculptor Jean Gibson, who taught her how to cast: “She was very much about theory, and when she didn’t like something, if I thought it was not bad, I would bring it home to show Eduardo. By then he was coming for lunch or dinner, and he was very encouraging. Eduardo would teach you to decide for yourself whether your work is good or not. He would say that you are the better judge, and no one could tell you that what you are doing is crap”, she says. “Eduardo taught me how to see, how to concentrate and discover things.”
When Fahri met her husband, the playwright David Hare, she stopped making work for a year: “Eduardo kept saying, ‘Love doesn’t suit your art’, and he decided to come once a week to my studio. He suggested I stop working in clay to get ‘a new buzz’, and I will never forget the day he taught me how to sculpt with wax. He would sit at one end of the table, and I at the other, and for six months we would work. At the end, I went back to clay, which was what he wanted, for me to go back to working.”
It was difficult for Paolozzi to be around people who weren’t excited by life, “Many times, when after dinner had ended he was not enjoying the conversation, he would stand up and say, ‘Who is taking me home?’ He would break the party, that was it. But that was Eduardo, he could be the way he wanted to be, I didn’t care,” Fahri smiles.
“If he really liked you he wouldn’t let you go, but a lot of people who he met throughout his life did not stand the test of time. He would fall in love quickly, and then you had to keep him interested – in what you were doing, or what you were saying – otherwise he would get bored. He couldn’t stand small talk.”
“With me, there were no problems. He’d sit at the end of the table, taking the whole side, so jolly and happy,” Fahri recalls. “When David and I got married, he was my witness. My father had died and he said, ‘I will be your Dad’. He really was like a father, he’d come to my house with his friends and I would cook for him, my home was open to him. We became a big family, because Eduardo was gregarious. He liked people to meet, he always enjoyed big parties and his friends becoming friends.”
Fahri’s home is testament to that, with Paolozzi’s presence felt around every corner. From works lining the walls, to small casts of animals from Noah’s Ark as bookends, and giant feet as doorstops; massive pink ceramic hats sit under side-boards, notes and photographs are slotted into frames and prints are racked up in the downstairs loo and run along the staircase.
“We would celebrate his birthday in our garden. I’d take out all the plaster works that he’d given me, put them out in the garden and we would have a party” says Fahri. “And he was interested in everything, theatre, design, music. The house became like a salon, it was so joyful, a beautiful life. I have a friend who is a flutist, they would play music, and Eduardo would be sat at the end of the table. The king of the party.”
Everything about Paolozzi was larger than life, “He had a big voice and big hands, he’d embrace you and kiss you on the mouth,” Fahri remembers. “Everything about him, his appetite, everything, was charismatic. People who are so open to the world, so giving, of course you are drawn to them. You go towards them, because they open your life, they open your world. It’s a great gift that he had, to be giving all the time. The whole of himself, his knowledge.”

Words by Billie Muraben, Tuesday 11 July 2017

Kosuth’s Dynamic Didactic Chromatics

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Joseph Kosuth’s Dynamic Didactic Chromatics at Mazzoleni

BY NICHOLAS FORREST | JULY 11, 2017

   

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Colour in Contextual Play

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  Mazzoleni
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  Joseph Kosuth

Mazzoleni London is currently presenting an utterly fascinating installation conceived by American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth. Titled “Colour in Contextual Play,” the exhibition is part of a series in which Kosuth installs contemporaries or forebears, in this case works by post-war masters which he has juxtaposed with new works from his seminal text series “Art as Idea as Idea”

The post-war masters in the exhibition were originally proposed by influential Arte Povera artist Emilio Prini, who was invited to mount an exhibition for Mazzoleni. He selected Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, Kosuth himself, and Piero Manzoni. A few months before his untimely passing in 2016, Prini requested that Joseph Kosuth replace him.

Joseph Kosuth is not only one of the originators pioneers of conceptual and installation art, he is also responsible for initiating language-based works and appropriation strategies. Since he emerged in the mid-1960s he has continued express the nature of art and language and their relationship to each other, using text to question the very definition of art.

“Being an artist now means to question the nature of art. If one is questioning the nature of painting, one cannot be questioning the nature of art . . . That’s because the word ‘art’ is general and the word ‘painting’ is specific. Painting is a kind of art. If you make paintings you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of art,” he has said.

According to Mazzoleni, “Colour in Contextual Play” investigates the idea of colour which is a theme that is explored by each of the post-war masters, both conceptually and technically. It is described as an homage to all five artists that is divided into chromatic and achromatic parts and includes sections in which the wall colours match works of the same hue.

The new text works by Kosuth in “Colour in Contextual Play” comprise dictionary definitions of the colours “white,” “black,” “grey,” “red,” “green,” “yellow,” and “violet.”  Pairing Kosuth’s works with works by the other artists utilizing those colours, “Colour in Contextual Play” asks the viewer to question the very act and nature of viewing itself.

Colour is more than just a hue or frequency if light. Colour has the power to change the way we experience shape, form, shape, and time. The brilliance of “Colour in Contextual Play” is that it reveals the power of colour through the work of a range of artists who interact, harness, and work with colour in a variety of different ways.

To find out more about “Colour in Contextual Play,” BLOUIN ARTINFO got in touch with Kosuth and asked him a few questions.

What is the history and motivation behind your interest in presenting installations which showcase the works of contemporaries or forebears and how did you end up creating an installation that focuses on works by artists proposed by Arte Povera artist Emilio Prini?

My motivation exists on a few levels. I like to show the linguistic play in all works of art even in those comprised of other works of art. It's also valuable to remind works based on modernist suppositions that the window pane of the painting is, in fact, not the edge of the known world in art. When a painting is reduced to one element within a construction of a larger work in a sense one liberates it. I like to show by hijacking curatorial methodology that this methodology is not “objective” and that, unlike art historians, artists construct meaning by taking subjective responsibility for the surplus meaning their juxtapositions generate. This is unlike art historians, who are forced to engage with art with the presumptions of a faux-science and with the presumptions of “objectivity”. There are more reasons but these should suffice.

Could you explain your theories and ideas on colour and how have expressed and reflected these with the site-specific installation that you have produced specifically for Mazzoleni London which places your monochrome works in company with works by the other artists utilizing these colours?

For me color is just there in a natural sense and is only usable, by me, to construct meaning. This usually is in “counting off” in a code of articulation. As a basis for the making of artworks color is pretty much 'used up' by all of the conventional ways it has been focused on within modernism. But artists are capable, when doing authentic work, to invent new ways of doing anything. As for your question, my works are not really monochrome but rather achromatic.

What is the conceptual basis and physical nature of the works in your “Art as Idea as Idea” series in terms of your ongoing exploration of the production and role of language and meaning within art and how does the series connect and relate to the theme of the overall installation?

I thought that by putting into play my works from the time of these paintings, mostly all of the same time period, several things were revealed. The contrast bares the device of my post-modern practice with paintings representing the last great blast of modernism. The definitions of color also exposes the interesting issues around language and experience. Definitions of color really show the limits of language.

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• Contemporary Arts
 

James Franco’s Career

Tuesday, July 11th, 2017 “You want to be interesting? Be interested.” - James Franco

James Franco’s Career

An Avalanche of Awkward Artsiness

James Franco always has a lot going on. Some may say too much. Indeed, just browse at his IMDb page and see all the recent movies he’s starred in that you have likely never heard of. Not content with a traditional Hollywood career path, Franco continually swerves into work that is odd, indie, artsy, challenging or, occasionally, just straight up bad. Yet, the always ambitious Franco may be heading towards a string of more traditional triumphs. There is, of course, his starring role in HBO’s upcoming prestige ‘70s porno world drama The Deuce (the latest trailer for the series just dropped). His film, The Disaster Artist, premiered at SXSW earlier this year and buzz is it could finally earn him respect as a director in his own right. Now comes news that he’ll be one of the stars The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the six-episode Western miniseries from Hollywood heavyweights the Coen brothers. It’ll mark Franco’s first collaboration with blue chip directors in sometime, and might remind us all that, “Oh, yeah, this guy was nominated for an Oscar once.”  James Franco Plays Twins in New Trailer for HBO's Seedy Drama The Deuce by  Kyle Munzenrieder July 10, 2017 7:21 pm Photographs by Alasdair McLellan, Styled by Edward Enninful; Hair by Shay Ashual at Art Partner; makeup by Diane Kendal for Marc Jacobs Beauty at Julian Watson Agency; manicures by Casey Herman for Dior at the Wall Group. Set design by Stefan Beckman at Exposure NY. The world at large had only seen less than 30 seconds of HBO's upcoming The Deuce, the David Simon-created drama about the porn, prostitution and organized crime that infested Times Square in the '70s and there was a whole lot going on just in that small glimpse alone. The creators seemed to have digitally recreated vintage Times Square, teased us with hints of tawdriness, and put Maggie Gyllenhaal in a very statement-worthy blonde wig. So much happened that we forget that this is the project in which James Franco plays twins. The latest teaser, about three-times as long as the first, gives us the first look of how exactly that will work, and the result is a whole lot of Franco. In fact, we get a peek at a scene where Franco plays both Vincent and Frankie Martino with no other characters. That's a whole lot of Franco. In fact, Franco also directed an episode, which, as he recently told us, turned out to be the most twin-heavy episode of the entire series. "It turns out, boom, we get the script, and it's like every scene is twins talking to each other, you know what I mean?" he said. "So as a director, I gotta kinda set it up, and then I gotta put on the makeup as Vinnie, and then do Vinnie. And then I've gotta double." "And when you're playing two characters in a scene, it's this whole different thing from what I'm used to doing in movies with Seth Rogen, where we improvise all the time. But when you're playing twins, you kind of have to think about what the other one is gonna improvise. So it's like I would come up with stuff for Vinnie, but then I'd be like, 'Oh, wait, Frankie should be saying that.' So then I had to whisper to Will, this guy from NYU who was my double, like, "All right, when I say this, you say that.'" As far as we can tell form the trailer, one of Franco's characters appears to be trying to earn an honest living with his bar, while the other finds himself involved in all sorts of nefarious schemes. Thankfully, the characters both have very distinct wigs so viewers can tell them apart when the series premiers on September 10th. Related: James Franco Admits Directing Himself as Twins in HBO's The Deuce Was a Little Confusing James Franco Used to Pick Up Girls Working at a McDonald's Drive Thru: Keywords http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0290556/          All         Titles         TV Episodes         Names         Companies         Keywords         Characters         Quotes         Bios         Plots       Advanced Search » Movies, TV & Showtimes Celebs, Events & Photos News & Community Watchlist | Help     Sign in with Facebook Other Sign in options Top 500 James Franco Actor | Producer | Director Known for his breakthrough starring role on Freaks and Geeks (1999), James Franco was born in Palo Alto, California on April 19, 1978. His mother, Betsy Franco, is Jewish, and his father, Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, was of Portuguese and Swedish descent, and ran a Silicon Valley business. James's mother, a writer, has occasionally acted. Growing ...See full bio » Born:  April 19, 1978 in Palo Alto, California, USA More at IMDbPro » Contact Info: View agent, manager, publicist, legal and company         716 photos | 170 videos | 597 news articles » Quick Links Biography Awards Photo Gallery Filmography (by Job) Trailers and Videos Explore More IMDb's Superhero Guide It's a great time to be a superhero fan! Find more films and television shows that save the day. 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Add it to your IMDbPage Find out more at IMDb Pro » Connect with IMDb How Much Have You Seen? How much of James Franco's work have you seen? User Polls Your Favorite Reservoir Dog Spider-Man Foes Who do you want as the new Joker? Which actor would you like as your quiz show partner? Directors Under 40 Close Col. See more polls » Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 32 wins & 91 nominations. See more awards » Known For 127 HorasAron Ralston (2010) Homem-AranhaHarry Osborn (2002) Homem-Aranha 2Harry Osborn (2004) Isto é o Fim!James Franco (2013)  Show all  |    Show by... Job Year » Rating » Number of Ratings » Genre » Keyword »    |  Edit Filmography Jump to: Actor | Producer | Director | Writer | Soundtrack | Cinematographer | Art department | Editor | Sound department | Thanks | Self | Archive footage Hide Actor (139 credits)  2018Arctic Justice (filming) Lemmy (voice)  2018Pretenders (post-production) Maxwell  2018The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (TV Mini-Series) (pre-production) - Near Algodones (2018)  2017The Long Home (post-production) Dallas Hardin  2017The Vault (completed) Ed Maas  2017/IIBlood Heist (completed) Farmer Simon  2017Future World (post-production)   2017Kill the Czar (post-production)   2017/IIKin (post-production)   2017The Deuce (TV Series) (post-production) Vincent Martino / Frankie Martino - Au Reservoir (2017) ... Vincent Martino / Frankie Martino - What Kind of Bad? (2017) ... Vincent Martino / Frankie Martino - I See Money (2017) ... Vincent Martino / Frankie Martino - The Principle Is All (2017) ... Vincent Martino / Frankie Martino - Show and Prove (2017) ... Vincent Martino / Frankie Martino Show all 8 episodes  2017The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards (post-production) Conrad  2017The Mad Whale (completed)   Mississippi Requiem (post-production)   Zeroville (completed) Vikar  2017Blood Surf Metalhead Troy  2017Don't Come Back from the Moon Roman Smalley  2017Alien: Covenant Branson (uncredited)  2017The Disaster Artist Tommy Wiseau  2017Actors Anonymous Jake Lamont  2017The Institute Dr. Cairn  2017Alien: Covenant - Prologue: Last Supper (Short) Branson  2017High School Lover Rick Winters  2016Porquê Ele? Laird Mayhew  2016Batalha Incerta Mac  2016Angie Tribeca (TV Series) Eddie Pepper / Sgt. Eddie Pepper / Sgt. Pepper - Electoral Dysfunction (2016) ... Sgt. Eddie Pepper - The Coast Is Fear (2016) ... Eddie Pepper - Boyz II Dead (2016) ... Eddie Pepper - Organ Trail (2016) ... Sgt. Pepper - Fleas Don't Kill Me (2016) ... Sgt. Eddie Pepper Show all 6 episodes  2016Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? (TV Movie) Director  2016The Caged Pillows (Video short) David Del Rosario  2016Burn Country Lindsay  2016King Cobra Joe  201622.11.63 (TV Mini-Series) Jake Epping - The Day in Question (2016) ... Jake Epping - Soldier Boy (2016) ... Jake Epping - Happy Birthday, Lee Harvey Oswald (2016) ... Jake Epping - The Truth (2016) ... Jake Epping - The Eyes of Texas (2016) ... Jake Epping Show all 8 episodes  2016Salsicha Party Druggie (voice)  2016Goat Mitch  2015Richard Peter Johnson James Franco  2015/IIA Última Noitada James Franco  2014-2015Making a Scene with James Franco (TV Series short) James / Jack / Eric Forman, Michael Kelso / ... - One's Company (2015) ... Jack - That 70s 70s Show (2015) ... Eric Forman, Michael Kelso - Friendtervention (2015) ... Rachel / Joey - Seinfeld M.D. (2015) ... Jerry - Saved by the Freaks (2015) ... Zack Morris / Daniel Desario Show all 18 episodes  2015/IMemoria Mr. Wyckoff  2015Black Dog, Red Dog Leo  2015/IO Principezinho The Fox (voice)  2015Deadbeat (TV Series) Johnny - The Polaroid Flasher (2015) ... Johnny  2015The Adderall Diaries Stephen Elliott  2015Wild Horses Ben Briggs  2015A Walk in Winter (Short) Conrad  2015Tudo Vai Ficar Bem Tomas  2015Rainha do Deserto Henry Cadogan  2015I Am Michael Michael Glatze  2015Yosemite Phil  2015/IA Verdadeira História Christian Longo  2015Don Quixote Pasamonte  2015The Labyrinth Narrator (voice)  2014I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel James  2014/IIUma Entrevista de Loucos Dave Skylark  2014Grow a Guy (Short) Chad, the Grow-a-Guy  2014National Theater Live: Of Mice and Men George Milton  2014The Sound and the Fury Benjy Compson  2014Dave Skylark's Very Special VMA Special (TV Movie) David Skylark  2014A Decisão Mortal Tom Wright  2014Obituaries (Short) Felix Mitchum  2014Veronica Mars James Franco (uncredited)  2013/IHomefront: A Última Defesa Morgan 'Gator' Bodine  2013/IVPlaytime The Art Dealer  2013The Mindy Project (TV Series) Paul Leotard - The Other Dr. L (2013) ... Paul Leotard - All My Problems Solved Forever... (2013) ... Paul Leotard  2013Na Terceira Pessoa Rick  2013Child of God - Filho de Deus Jerry  2013Palo Alto Mr. B  2013The Real World: This Is the End Edition (TV Short) James Franco  2013Isto é o Fim! James Franco  2013Na Minha Morte Darl Bundren  2013Oz: O Grande e Poderoso Oz  2013Lovelace Hugh Hefner  2012/IITar C.K. Williams  2012Hollywood Heights (TV Series) Osbourne Silver - The Final Concert (2012) ... Osbourne Silver - Jetsetter (2012) ... Osbourne Silver - Loren's Recording Session (2012) ... Osbourne Silver - Eddie Questions His Feelings (2012) ... Osbourne Silver - Chloe's Secret (2012) ... Osbourne Silver Show all 6 episodes  2012/IVThe Letter Tyrone  2012Spring Breakers: Viagem de Finalistas Alien  2012Um Homem de Família Marty Freeman  2012Maladies James  2012FCU: Fact Checkers Unit (TV Series) James - James Franco Is Preggers (2012) ... James  2012Rebel Dabble Babble (Short) Jim Stark / James Dean  2012Doce Tentação Frances  2009-2012General Hospital (TV Series) Franco - Episode #1.12473 (2012) ... Franco - Episode #1.12472 (2012) ... Franco - Episode #1.12443 (2011) ... Franco - Episode #1.12429 (2011) ... Franco - Episode #1.12428 (2011) ... Franco Show all 54 episodes  2011/IIRebel (Short)   2011/ISal Milton Katselas  2011Planeta dos Macacos: A Origem Will Rodman  2011The Broken Tower Hart Crane  2011Real Desatino Fabious  2011Green Hornet Danny Crystal Cleer (uncredited)  2010127 Horas Aron Ralston  2010Love & Distrust (Video) Travis (segment: "Grasshopper" by Eric Kmetz)  2010Comer Orar Amar David Piccolo  2010Masculinity & Me (Short)   2010William Vincent William Vincent  2010Uma Noite Atribulada Taste  2010Uivo Allen Ginsberg  201030 Rock (TV Series) James Franco - Klaus and Greta (2010) ... James Franco  2008/IMilk Scott Smith  2008O Sorriso das Estrelas Mark Flanner (uncredited)  2008Alta Pedrada Saul Silver  2008/ICamille O Poder do Amor Silias  2007The Hills with James Franco and Mila Kunis (Video short) Justin Bobby  2007No Vale de Elah Sgt. Dan Carnelli  2007Spider-Man 3 (Video Game) Harry Osborn / New Goblin (voice)  2007Good Time Max Max  2007Homem-Aranha 3 New Goblin / Harry Osborn  2007Um Azar do Caraças Sol (uncredited)  2007Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee Dean Silo  2007/IEntrevista Boyfriend on Phone (voice)  2007An American Crime Andy  2006O Amor não Tira Férias James Franco (uncredited)  2006A Rapariga Morta Derek  2006Grasshopper (Short) Travis  2006Flyboys - Nascidos para Voar Blaine Rawlings  2006O Escolhido Bar Guy #1  2006Annapolis - Paixão e Glória Jake Huard  2006Tristão e Isolda Tristan  2005Fool's Gold Brent  2005O Resgate dos ''Soldados Fantasma'' Captain Prince  2005O Macaco Harry Walker  2004Homem-Aranha 2 Harry Osborn  2003A Companhia Josh  2002A Cidade do Passado Joey  2002Sonny Sonny  2002Mother Ghost Skateboarder Guy  2002You Always Stalk the Ones You Love   2002The Car Kid (Short)   2002Blind Spot Danny  2002Deuces Wild Tino  2002Homem-Aranha Harry Osborn  2001James Dean (TV Movie) James Dean  2001Mean People Suck (Short) Casey  2001Some Body Apartment Guy #3 (uncredited)  2001Ficheiros Secretos (TV Series) Officer #2 - Surekill (2001) ... Officer #2  2000If Tomorrow Comes Devin  1999-2000Freaks and Geeks (TV Series) Daniel Desario - Noshing and Moshing (2000) ... Daniel Desario - Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers (2000) ... Daniel Desario - The Little Things (2000) ... Daniel Desario - Smooching and Mooching (2000) ... Daniel Desario - Discos and Dragons (2000) ... Daniel Desario Show all 18 episodes  2000At Any Cost (TV Movie) Mike  2000Custe o que Custar Chris  1999Profiler (TV Series) Stevie - Three Carat Crisis (1999) ... Stevie  1999Nunca Fui Beijada Jason (as James Edward Franco)  1999To Serve and Protect (TV Mini-Series) Matt Carr - Episode #1.2 (1999) ... Matt Carr - Episode #1.1 (1999) ... Matt Carr  19981973 (TV Movie) Greg  1997Asas nos Pés (TV Series) Brian - Matters of the Heart (1997) ... Brian Show Producer (67 credits) Show Director (37 credits) Show Writer (25 credits) Show Soundtrack (7 credits) Show Cinematographer (1 credit) Show Art department (1 credit) Show Editor (1 credit) Show Sound department (1 credit) Show Thanks (13 credits) Show Self (140 credits) Show Archive footage (15 credits) Related Videos    See all 170 videos » Edit Personal Details Other Works:  Novel: "Actors Anonymous". New York: Little A/New Harvest. ISBN-10: 0544114531; ISBN-13: 9780544114531 See more » Publicity Listings:  5 Interviews | 23 Articles | 2 Pictorials | 32 Magazine Cover Photos | See more » Official Sites:  Facebook Fan Page | Instagram | See more » Alternate Names:  James Edward Franco Height:  5' 11" (1,8 m) Edit Did You Know? Personal Quote:  [on playing gay characters] - It's funny because the way that kind of stuff is talked about on blogs is so black-and-white. It's all cut-and-dry identity politics. 'Is he straight or is he gay?' Or, 'This is your third gay movie - come out already!' And all based on, gay or straight, based on the idea that your object of affection decides your sexuality. There are lots of other reasons to be ... See more » Trivia:  Franco told interviewer Terry Gross that when he was in junior high school, he was arrested for shoplifting cologne from a department store and reselling it with his friends at the school. He noted to Gross the irony that, in 2008, he shot an advertising campaign in which he became the face of Gucci cologne. See more » Trademark:  One sided smile See more » Nickname:  Ted, Teddy Star Sign:  Aries Getting Started | Contributor Zone » Contribute to This Page Add resume Manage your history Recently Viewed