LOS ANGELES — XBIZ Award-winning performer James Deen and fellow performer Heather Vahn engage in explicit sex in a video that accompanies James Franco's upcoming "Rebel" art exhibition that opens on May 15 at the JF Chen gallery.
Presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art, "Rebel" is an homage to Nicholas Ray’s classic 1955 film "Rebel Without A Cause," which starred Hollywood legend James Dean. "Rebel" was conceived by Franco to embrace and mine the main themes and events in the original film.
The exhibition reinterprets the film’s legends, the people involved and its place in Hollywood. "Rebel" is being presented via film, video installation, photography, painting, drawing, and sculpture, all housed in and framed by iconic Hollywood structures. It will be on view from May 15 through June 23 at JF Chen, a newly emerging contemporary art and design space, located at 941 North Highland Ave., LA 90038.
Deen and Vahn are part of the video installation that was shot by Paul McCarthy and son Damon McCarthy. The video primarily features Franco as James Dean, Paul McCarthy as Nicholas Ray, and others in what is being billed as "ludicrous abstractions of events that were rumored to have happened during the making of Ray’s 'Rebel Without a Cause.'"
Deen and Vahn perform a hardcore sex scene for the video, which is set in Bungalow Two at the Chateau Marmont. The video references Hollywood and celebrity and art and the art world. The McCarthys desribe it as “the beginning of an ongoing investigation into, and improvisations involving, a group of characters for a major multimedia installation work” to be presented in its entirety at The Box gallery in Los Angeles starting this Friday.
The Box gallery is located at 805 Traction Ave., LA 90013.
Harmony Korine, Terry Richardson, Douglas Gordon, Ed Ruscha and Aaron Young also contributed to the "Rebel" exhibition.
