The Xanadu-Xenu Connection
Flatbed digital serigraph on wood, 12×12 in.

A mash-up of the Grease original motion picture soundtrack album cover (featuring Olivia Newton John and John Travolta in an original still photo by Dave Friedman from a scene directed by Randall Kleiser) with David Bowie‘s Aladdin Sane era make-up, and Ace Frehley‘s 1978 Kiss Alive II make-up.

Olivia Newton John’s follow-up to Grease would be the Disco-era musical Xanadu. Until Tom Cruise‘s fame surpassed his, John Travolta was the most famous member of the Church of Scientology. More of a self-help movement than a traditional religion, L. Ron Hubbard‘s sci-fi themed theology has been under scrutiny since its inception. Critics of the church’s non-profit charitable organization status fixate on the OT Level III teachings about an intergalactic warlord named Xenu. While possibly ridiculous, is it any more or less ridiculous than beliefs held by the overwhelming majority of this planet’s population? Or is it the litigiousness of Hubbard’s church that inspires criticism? Secrecy, when mixed with religion has always inspired suspicion, and religious movements have a history of forming around eccentric characters to wildly varying outcomes. Still, we find them fascinating, and the idea of Olivia Newton John in androgynous Bowie drag blurs further the attention of a masked Travolta.