Shot by the Writer

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Most descriptions of gallery art sound like pretentious bullshit, but this is funny besides: "The screenplay is never an end in itself; rather it is a vehicle for further creative exploration. By making the screenplay, the object and the end product of the artwork, screenwriter Tom Benedek (Cocoon) has corrected the internal contradiction inherent to the process.

"Tom's artwork stars the screenplay, and that within it lives a movie, is just one aspect of the whole. By 'shooting the script' what he is really doing is liberating the word. Tom's selection process only addressed "those of his scripts that were commissioned but [which] he no longer controlled, so that this incomplete document is elevated to a status it otherwise would never attain" Benedek's artworks, which are being presented under the title "Shot by the Writer", are being celebrated at a reception on Thursday, 6.29, at the Shavelson-Webb Library, 7000 West 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA from 6:30 to 8:30.

comment #1

drake fenton says ...

Great another postmodern pile of maneur.

comment #2

Michael DeGregorio says ...

let me get this straight. a writer takes his script, and then shoots holes in it....and that is then called art? wtf? why not just take a dump on a canvas and call that art? oh wait...I think they have done that already.

comment #3

ArchiveGuy says ...

I can't wait for the follow-ups: "Peed on by the Producer", "Royally screwed by the leading lady", "Ignored by the general public"

comment #4

Steve C says ...

Wasn't this already done on Sanford & Son and The Simpsons? Fred and Homer beat him to it by a mile.

Seriously, you're just asking for ridicule at this point to try this post-modern bullshit without adding another layer to it.

I might accept that it rises to the level of art if he had actually constructed something out of it, but this is no different than someone taking a sledgehammer to a TV as some sort of "comment" on the decline of network programming.

A far more meaningful concept would be to take a copy of every script submitted to a production office in one year, make some sort of diorama of a film set showing the crew and call it "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of."

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