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The only person who may be meditating more on the concept of “James Franco” than the actor himself is New York artist Nic Rad. His performance piece “The Celebritist Manifesto” is an ode, a study, and a satirical performance to the actor who defies all conventions of what it means to be “Hollywood.” Originally written for a group show called “Hashtag,” organized by William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton, Nic plans to stage a second showing of “Manifesto” in New York before the end of February.
Nic writes on the “prologue” portion of his Celebritist Manifesto website his original concept for his Franco installation:
My first attempt at ‘a stirring defense of James Franco as the greatest artist of this generation, if not all time’ was constructed in the following manor–
Step 1: For fifteen minutes I planned to repeat the name “Franco,” to you… my increasingly disappointed audience.
Step 2: I would “see what happened.” That was all. That was it.
Luckily (for his audience), Nic soon changed his concept to something bigger: an 18-minute 
prose he describes as “‘fan art: a pleasure poem,’ and which includes lines like:
“James Franco is a situationalist/James Franco is a self satirizing icon/James Franco is both overprivileged by his good genetic fortune, and also a humble a student of the universe/James Franco IS America.”
As backdrop, Nic also created a fan shrine to Franco, in front of which he does his piece. I recently sat down with Nic to talk about our mutual obsession with the actor/artist, as well our problems with the man who Nic calls in his piece “The greatest artist of this generation if not all time.”
Where did this Franco obsession come from?
Well, when this show was taking place, it was around the time that James was rising in the art world, that he had this type of self-guided idea that he was a artist as well as an actor.”
And student!
For me, one of the fascinations was the complicit nature on the part of the colleges to use Franco’s fame to promote their own Ivy League Institutions. But also this self-conscious mounted assault on the art world. And I was saying to myself, “You know what? I buy it.” It was at the time Lady Gaga was getting a lot of articles written about her for collaborating with designers, and some other celebrities tangentially related to art people having their own shows. And it seemed silly. But for Franco, I bought that he was really trying to do something.
What was he doing?
At the time? This art show at the Clocktower, this show at Air American Radio, and on top of that he was doing these performance things with Kalup Linzy.
Did you read his writing?
I went to his reading at Barnes and Nobles. And I have critiques with what he’s written for Paulo Alto, but the bigger picture is that I felt like this was an individual who was taking all the boyish, 14-year-old fantasies that any introspective, dweeby kid – like myself – thought they could do when they grew up. And he’s accomplishing them, both commercially and artistically. So he’s acting, he’s directing, he’s a heartthrob, he’s an artist….
