By Elizabeth Daniels

On Friday, August 17th I went to the O’Melveny Gallery, (a mid-Wilshire gallery recently moved from the fancier border of West Hollywood/ Beverly Hills) to see The Anthony Project. www.yorkrules.com/2007/03/17/the-anthony-project  

I like the new location because it is literally across the street from the El Rey, where Asha Mevlana, our Associate Editor (and the first person to devote numerous unpaid hours of their time to the magazine), was playing electric violin in one of her bands, Porcelain, later that night. This location coincidence is a big deal in LA, and it added to the contrast in mood of the two events.

Here is how the Anthony Project is described by Royal York, the guy who put it together.

“The Anthony Project explores how terminal cancer affects all whom it touches, beginning with the patient and radiating outward. The project documents the personal story of Anthony Glass, 31, who lost his life to cancer during the production process. It offers a multifaceted view of the human struggle for survival and the aftermath of loss, combining portraits, snapshots, e-mails, blogs, video, and audio interviews with Anthony, his family, and friends.”

The bulk of the work consists of photos with text transposed onto them, mounted on large sheets of foam core. In the back room, people were sitting and watching a slide show of Anthony, his friends and family, put to music from the last mix Anthony made. There were Kleenex boxes on the benches, which gave the exhibit a slight (but not overwhelming) feeling of a memorial or a wake.

My first thought was, Anthony would be considered hot by most girls I know. Besides being very good-looking, it seems that he had a huge group of friends and a healthy sense of humor (confirmed by one short video of him dancing in drag). There was one photo of him, (the last or the first-depending on where you started), that on first glance looks like a Calvin Klein underwear ad. He has his shirt off and black underwear visible above his pants. I don’t know why it took a few seconds, but I didn’t see the tumor (or goiter?) that was size-wise somewhere between a bowling ball and a baseball, protruding from his neck. Its like he had this thing sitting on his shoulder.

This was disturbing, but effective. I was reminded how indiscriminate cancer is, how you can still look really good and be really sick (something I learned from Cindy Kramer, who in stage 4 breast cancer, was pissed off when people told her how good she looked because she needed more help than she was getting.)

The timeline of Anthony’s dying put the text (transposed over the photographs) in some kind of order, but the photos of him were about his relationships with the people he loved (who were centered in the pieces) and were mostly of him when he was young, or older and healthy. Great, I thought, because its criminal for people to be remembered for having cancer, although this is something that inevitably happens.

Anthony’s girlfriend says something worthwhile about this on the website that goes with the exhibit. www.yorkrules.com/2006/06/30/chasity-turnquist-glass/

York’s website is also a good venue for this project and it is groundbreaking, but I am too lazy to think about why and write it down.

The Anthony Project definitely focused on life apart from cancer and shows the dealing with cancer in a way that I have never seen. Maybe its because he lived in Venice like I did for 5 years (including the time of my diagnosis), that it left me with a strong, tangible feeling…that could have been me.

The use of his emails and instant messages on the photos is effective in giving an impression of what he was like- which again, disturbingly, I wholly identified with. This is rare for me, and I wonder how many people would feel this familiarity if they got a chance to see the show.

Unfortunately, the show was only up for 2 days, I imagine due to the fact that the work was not going to sell. Finding a place that would allow access to a larger public would be next to impossible. If a place were to agree, I doubt it would be a modern gallery, or somewhere that art about cancer is not usually found, and the feel of the venue added to the effectiveness of the show making an impression on me.

All the interesting and intellectually stimulating things aside, the peek into the transformation of Anthony’s body, the few photos of him, unrecognizable, getting married on his deathbed at the end of the slide show especially, are reality checks of the grotesqueness of what cancer can do. As it does happens too often, a chill of fear descended.

It’s a good thing I got to walk across the street and see Asha (who had breast cancer), sexier than ever, playing electric violin in a rock band. No wonder Gnarls Barkley wanted her on tour- she is a rock star. I went home happy.