People hated the swan. And maybe even continue to do so. For as long as memory serves, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Oscar Awards have been that night that Hollywood congratulates itself—and television viewers have participated in the mass spectacle that is witnessing what the rich and famous decide to put on their often tanned and toned bodies. Despite some egregious fashion faux pas over the years—Tilda Swinton’s black potato sack in 2008, Angelina Jolie’s Morticia getup in 2000—the Oscars’ real train wrecks come from musicians. Who can forget Cher’s alien showgirlish get up in 1986 or Celine Dion’s 1999 backward baseball cap—I mean, white suit and rakish fedora? And, of course, there was Björk hitting the 2001 red carpet wrapped in a swan dress.

In all fairness, though, would we really have it any other way? We expect nothing less than the outrageous from our rock stars—which is perhaps why not one but two artists envisioned themselves wearing that swan dress in Self-Portrait as Rock Star, the Gary Kachadourian-midwifed exhibition currently installed at Current Gallery. Willa Fan offers a simple sketch of herself wearing the infamous dress, while Michael Benevento, in one of many instances of the exhibition’s cheekiness, delivers a very different take. He illustrates the dress in an economic series of squiggles and then plops his head, out of proportion and almost as an impertinent afterthought, right at the top where the swan’s neck curls around its wearer’s shoulders.

There’s so much more where that came from. Last October, Current and Kachadourian put out a call for entries for this self-explanatory exhibit: “We would prefer that all images be on paper (spiral bond lined paper is our favorite but anything is fine) and that images larger than 11x14” be able to be rolled. “We will also accept canvas board just because we are hoping to get at least one psychedelic self portrait as George Harrison.” Roughly 100 artists submitted work, including four video pieces, and the 2D work was compiled into a photocopied zine featuring cover art by Post Typography (the graphic design duo of sometimes City Paper contributors Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen).

The definition of rock star was left up to the submitting artists’ imaginations, which is what makes the work so alluring. Kachadourian’s curatorial streak has a way of getting at how and what artists think in a casually silly manner: a previous exhibition he organized at Current featured collections of artists’ doodles, the sort of quick sketches and time-killing illos artists do when bored out of their gourds during staff meetings, while waiting for the bus, while on hold on the phone, and other such ordinary moments. Collected en masse, it offered a delightful peek into artist’s minds during the sort of brain-dead activities we all have to endure.

> Email Bret McCabe