Don't Escape from Chris Burden and Mike Kelley

Image by Christian Storm.

I Am Not from This Planet is a column where we give James Franco’s Florida-bred, gun-toting, big-bootie-loving pal Alien the floor to sound off on whatever he likes. For this edition, Alien breaks us off some knowledge with a review of Escape from Tomorrow and the NYC retrospectives of artists Chris Burden and Mike Kelley.

This Alien, ya’ll. You know how I do. I be out and about in New York, seeing things, doing things, and getting cultural. Know what I’m saying? Them things that interest me is pure art and pure cinema. So I’m gone talk about them things, if that be alright with ya’ll.

First off, let me tell you about Escape from Tomorrow. It is out in theaters and On Demand, but I bought the shit when I was getting my hair braided at the bootysalon on a bootleg DVD along with a pair of mismatched socks, a handful of Raisinets, and two sticks of incense. The movie’s all about Disneyland. It was shot there without the Mouse’s permission. But for some reason, Disney has NOT shut the movie down. It features a mean old daddy who is having one of them “emotional breakdowns.”

I knew the shit was gone be tight when I seen the trailer. It was in black and white and had these crazy effects with fairies, possessed eyeballs, and some dude’s head turning into the Epcot Center golf ball. Then I seen Mickey in the park speaking in that squeaky, spooky voice, all like “People come here because they want to feel safe!” The shit gave me goose bumps. When I first heard about this thing, I guessed that it would be a rough-looking mumblecore film, but that trailer looked arty than a motherfucker. I had nightmares after that trailer. I’m a gangster, y’all, and I was sleeping with the lights on and shit. It got so bad, I was worried that it would ruin Disneyland for me forever, and you know I love me so Minnie Mouse.

I was at Sundance in January when the shit premiered. I ain’t see it then, but I did see the Big Exec from Disney at the festival. I was like “What the fuck is you doing here?” And he be like, “Oh, I’m just taking in some films.” And I’m thinking, Isn’t this one of the motherfuckers behind the Lone Ranger and Avengers? What’s he doing at a little indie festival? Only after I ran into that fool did I realize they was there to scope the film out, because it was premiering and shit. They was even talking about them shutting it down before it premiered, but they didn’t. It didn’t make me no difference, though, since I get all my movies off the street anyways.

The sad thing is that the best part about Escape is the idea of sneaking into the park, Banksy style, and filming it. I’ll also give them points for execution, because it looks pretty crazy. But all that terror from the trailer is replaced by a booty-ass storyline about a goofy dad whose wife won’t even kiss him during “It’s a Small World.” I would fuck with this idea, but they didn’t follow through with the subversive shit they promised in that trailer.

I ran up on the director when I was in NYC and asked him why Disney hadn’t stopped his shit form coming out. He said they probably didn’t want to give it more attention. Shit.

Well, I think he should make another one and use as much of the beautiful shots he got on the rides as possible and not worry about the goofy dads as much or the cat fever, whatever the fuck that is.

The second thing I wanted to break y’all off with is some real arty art. Right now, all these LA artists been invading the New York museums. Mike Kelley is at PS1 and Chris Burden is at the New Museum.

Mike Kelley’s show is extensive. It’s got them stuffed animals, them paintings that be covered in words and philosophy, them sculptures made out of detritus from the Detroit rivers, and them Superman inspired miniature cities in jars. Altogether, it’s some of the hardest shit from his seminal Gagosian show from way back in the day.

Of course Mike is gone. Dead. As far as I know, he was planning to have this show before he died, but now that he gone, it is a true retrospective of one of the great artists of the past three decades. Try and show me a young art-type motherfucker who hasn’t been influenced by Mike Kelley.

He was the artist of youth and our times. He was the artist of religion, pop culture, performance, identity, and all them good things. I heard he didn’t feel welcome in NYC—lots of LA artists be saying that—so it’s great to see all this beautiful shit in NYC at MoMA’s very own, PS1.

Over in Manhattan, Chris Burden is at the New Museum. Just look up and you’ll see his boat resting on the outside of the damn building. Chris known far and wide in the art crowd for his unbeatable performances of the 70s: getting’ shot in the arm by a rifle (Shoot), trying to breath water until he passed out, shooting a pistol at a commercial airliner, getting crucified on top of a VW bug (Trans-fixed), slithering naked across broken glass (Through the Night Softly), and then buying airtime on a local station and broadcasting his video to unsuspecting viewers.

The show at New Museum is more focused on his later work of sculptures and installations. Most of these be about power and violence, man versus man, and man versus himself. It be examining the way we live with each other. Tale of Two Cities be a huge diorama of a big city attacking a little city using toys and models and shit. He have cannons and bridges and a piece looking at all the US submarines ever built.

More than anything, Chris be the consummate combination of concept and masculine strength. He puts physicality and ideas together so smoothly, no one has matched his intensity. Just look at Shoot, a momentary but incredibly scary act of getting shot in the arm that rocked the art world in the 70s and is still reverberatin'.

Previously - Them Sounds Is Furious