PARK Winter Issue 2025

James Franco & Galerie Gmurzynska

Academy Award nominated actor James Franco, 46, has returned to his visual roots to create a new show of collages called “Hollywood is Hell” at Isabelle Bscher’s Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich. The show, two years in the making, consists of 28 shocking canvases and objets d’art appearing as destroyed posters on the street walls of some dirty area in LA. Franco says “These collages represent a portrait of Los Angeles during Covid. The streets were empty, the posters damaged on the walls… It was sort of an almost post-apocalyptic atmosphere. I lived at that time near the Hollywood cemetery, where so many stars are buried, and I was walking there. Dreamland had become for me a wasteland.” The exhibition can also be viewed on the gallery’s website, gmurzynska.com. Franco, who will be in Zurich for the opening, told me “We are in a world that is saturated with different forms of media; we spend half our lives engaged with different forms of social media, entertainment media, and work-related media. Television, movies, video games, and the Internet have woven themselves into the fabric of our lives; their influence has helped shape who we are.” The star who has won two Golden Globes for his role in The Disaster Artist and as James Dean has appeared in nearly 100 films and series since he was 16 and has a PhD in English from Yale.

This is not Franco’s first show, he had an exhibit at MOCA Los Angeles called Rebel in 2012, with Paul McCarthy, Douglas Gordon, and Ed Ruscha as well as shows at the Pace and Gagosian galleries. For his new show, Franco revisited works he had made when he was twenty and intervened in them today. “Collaging all those different mediums and forms of expression: this is my way.” he said adding “I started to make collages of new canvases on old canvases, then I repaint over them, so it becomes a kind of collage of my younger self with the new self. But the younger self was also in a way a product of Hollywood, when I was mostly an actor. So it is really my young actor self being sort of repurposed and put into the collages.” Bscher told me “This exhibition works as a kind of mirror of the artist-actor’s permanent quest for authenticity.”

Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte

Famed architect Peter Marino — who redesigned Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue —, billionaires Christine and Stephen Schwarzman, and Louis Vuitton’s chairman Pietro Beccari hosted a black tie ball at the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte outside of Paris. Countess Patrice de Vogüé, who owns the 17th century estate — which was the inspiration for Louis the 14th’s Versailles — welcomed two hundred of the jet set including shoe designer Christian Louboutin in a red fez, jeweler Paloma Picasso, Tom Ford designer Haider Ackermann, actresses Marisa Berenson and Cornelia Guest, Isabelle Marino, Susan Gutfreund, Eugenia Bullock, and architect Norman Foster. The evening raised over 1.6 million to help restore the Chateau’s 22 fountains. vaux-le-vicomte.com

God’s Love We Deliver

Sarah Jessica Parker, Meg Thee Stallion, Cole Escola and Pat Costello were among the honorees at the God’s Love We Deliver (GLWD) Gold Heart Awards at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. The organization is NYC’s only nonprofit provider of medically tailored meals for individuals living with severe illness. Remarks were made by Kristin Chenoweth, GLWD Love CEO David Ludwigson, and Michael Kors whose event co-chairs included Anna Wintour, Blaine Trump, and John Idol. The evening concluded with a performance by Sam Smith who said “I never turn down a request to sing from three people my Mom, Dad and Anna.” Leading the applause were Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chloe Fineman, Zoey Deutch, Huma Abedin, and Luann De Lesseps. The event raised over 4 million dollars. glwd.org

Rita Hayworth Gala & Alzheimer’s Association

The late Hollywood goddess Rita Hayworth was remembered by her daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan when she hosted the 40th anniversary of The Alzheimer’s Association’s Imagine

Benefit. “My fight against Alzheimer’s began in 1981 when I became a caregiver for my mother when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. I knew at that moment that this would become my life’s work.” Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. sang “The Room Where It Happens” from Hamilton. The benefit raised over $1.2 million adding to the $90 million that has been raised since the Association’s inception in 1984 for care and research into Alzheimer’s. alz.org.

The Art Show & Henry Street Settlement

Agnes Gund, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Liliana Cavendish, interior designer TC Chou, and Yvonne Force Villareal led the way to the opening of the Art Show at the Park Avenue Amory that benefited the Henry Street Settlement. Over one million dollars was raised to provide vital social services to 50 thousand New Yorkers in need of shelter, education, and art programs. The Show has raised more than $38 million for the organization since 1989. Also in the mix was Galerie Gmurzynska’s Mathias Rastorfer as well as Adam Lindemann, who had a booth for his gallery Venus Over Manhattan which featured a solo show by Seth Becker. theartshow.org

Harry’s Bar: London

Laurence Graff, Emilia and Pepe Fanjul, Lady Lynne Rothschild with her beau, Lord Saatchi and Lord William and Lady Annabel Astor were among the guests at Hillary and Wilbur Ross’s dinner celebrating the English launch of his book Risks and Returns at Harry’s Bar in London. After the fete the Ross’s went on to be the guests of the Duke of Marlborough and his sister, Lady Henrietta Spencer – Churchill at Blenheim Castle. Ross then flew to California for a book signing at the Nixon Foundation where he talked about how a Trump administration would differ from a Harris one.

Gert + Giesela

Pseudonymous photographers Gert and Gisela (G+G) made their NYC debut with the eponymously named exhibition at Alfred González’s Gallery 71. Through artistic double-nude portraits, the exhibition shed light on the themes of connection, beauty, and female empowerment. “Germany’s culture of nudity as something supportive of physical, mental, and spiritual health is not always easily understood by a U.S. audience,” Gisela says. “By inviting the viewer to consider what might at first be surprising or even shocking about each photograph, we are hoping to start conversations about expectations that we typically hold about both society and ourselves.” gallery71.com

Larry David, Susie Essman & Aphrodise

Vin Diesel, Tina Fey, and Steve Carell are among the dozens of stars scheduled to be in scenes with Frank Schilling and Gabi Petrylaite’s new sparkling rosé Aphrodise from Greece. The couple’s bubbly has become such a hit in Hollywood and New York that it’s being featured in over 50 shows on Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and Apple TV — including the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David and Susie Essman. Petrylaite said, “Whether they’re at a bar, a dinner party, or if it’s a romantic scene between a couple, and they share a glass, we’ll have a lot of these moments in big TV and film productions. It’s very flattering and exciting to see how much Hollywood loves Aphrodise.” drinkaphrodise.com