Biography brad renfro james franco friendship

On Saturday, James Franco joined with Artspace and The Thing Quarterly to host a screening of his new film, Brad, at the New Museum and debut his new limited-edition artwork: a switchblade emblazoned with the words "Brad Renfro Forever." The artwork, which is available on Artspace, relates rather incisively to the film.

A twisted homage to the late actor and bad-boy heartthrob Brad Renfro, who died of a heroin overdose in 2008 at the age of 25, Brad shows Franco memorializing his onetime peer by having a tattoo artist carve "Brad" in his arm with a switchblade—an excruciating process that both recalls the weapon of choice in Rebel Without a Cause, the most famous film of Franco's adopted Hollywood icon, James Dean, and also calls up thoughts of endurance-based performance artworks by Marina Abramovic and Chris Burden.

After screening the film, Franco sat down for a talk with fellow artist and collaborator L