It had to happen: Mr. Brainwash and James Franco at TIFF

In what seems like a mild sign of the apocalypse, both James Franco and Mr. Brainwash will be, um, an art-world presence at our annual hometown Hollywood love-in, the Toronto International Film Festival. Franco, whose genre-defying cultural dexterity is poised to extend from actor and artist and into the realm of pornography director, will show his intallation/performance piece "Memories of Idaho," a collaboration with Gus Van Sant.  Mr. Brainwash's plans are nothing so official, with the festival saying he'll be doing "a number of projects" (one of them is a show at Gallery One), and that we can expect him to be "towering over the red carpet" to provide "additonal glamour and pomp." Say what? 

In any case, they're twin poles of the same machine: One is an artist celebrity, the other a celebrity artist -- or so Brainwash became after beign featured in the Banksy film "Exit Through the Gift Shop." What they seem to share in common is an unquenchable thirst for attention, and what better place to slake it than TIFF? None, I say -- that's what it's all about.  

(image courtesy ArtInfo)