James Franco's lubed-up riff on Renaissance art is an embarrassment

Sotheby’s commissioned Franco to respond to its exhibition of Della Robbia glazed terracotta, so he duly covered models in slick gel. It’s just the latest unnecessary stab at making old art cool

A new video by “artist” James Franco purports to interpret and modernise the Renaissance art of the Della Robbia family, by pouring transparent gel over models’ understandably grimacing faces. It is not just worthless in itself, but exposes the bankruptcy of the 21st-century cliche that you can set the art of today confidently beside the art of the past in a way that somehow liberates it from the dust of museums.

The Della Robbias churned out bright and breezy reliefs … pure and pretty, full of life and humanity

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