Your Social Life: A Very Busy Week in LA!

Wow, it's not the moment to come down with a cold or the flu, as tons of things are happening in LA.
Let me start with the LA art fair, Art LA 2008. There's only 2 reasons to go, and here they are: my very, very good friend Matthieu Laurette who also happens to be a very good French artist has a one-man show at the Blow De La Barra booth! Matthieu has been infiltrating media and making comments about "The Society of Spectacle" (Debord and Situationist fiends you know what I'm speaking about) for a long time. His practice his not restricted to guerrilla-type actions live on the Today Show, but I'm posting an image for you to see. Matthieu will spend some time on the booth, so please stop by and say hi. Better yet, buy his work or curate a show with him!
Now it's all very well are you going to say, but what is the other reason to stop by the fair? The second reason is called Julie Lequin, who's volunteering at the booth of her publisher Second Cannons on Friday evening. Please go say hi to Julie, make sure to buy a copy of her book/DVD and look up upcoming publications including one on FBC! fav' Michael Smith (with Doug Skinner).

So tomorrow there's a talk a the Getty, along with an upcoming symposium Friday and Saturday, both events for which you need to register. FBC! will be at the panel tomorrow, but has too bad a cold to go to the conference, even though I would really need to go see it.

UPDATE: FBC! keeps on forgetting, but on Friday evening is the opening of Michael Asher at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. I like the SMMOA a lot (hi Elsa and Lisa!) and I'm delighted they are showing a great LA artist who hasn't been seen that much around lately.

And then what? Then things are not over, but there will sadly be a scheduling conflict for me, as Saturday I'll be attending the Patriot Acts opening at 18th St. complex in Santa Monica. I would have loved to be able to also attend Chris Lipomi's project (see details thereafter) but I doubt I will be able to make it on time. It's too bad because it is right next to my house.


Uzihektakta Wakipi
by Chris Lipomi

Saturday, January 26, 2008 9pm

1021 South Orange Dr.
Los Angeles, CA. 90019


Los Angeles based artist Chris Lipomi invites you on a
personalized tour through an off-site art
installation. A new project encapsulating 10 years of
art production, Uzihektakta Wakipi (loosely translated
meaning "the backwards dance") functions as a
subterranean pre-career retrospective.

Opening Reception at 9pm. with tours leaving every 15
minutes.
RSVP for preferred tour placement.

RSVP at: caveproject@gmail.com

Julie Lequin Book Launch!

Next week is when THE event where (unlike Art Basel Miami Beach) YOU HAVE TO BE SEEN happens!
Julie Lequin's artist book is being launched, and it's awesome, and in the proud tradition of artist books you can actually buy a book that is also an artwork! So you and the Getty and the Pompidou Center and my own chic Frenchy self will have in common the collecting of artist books (that will be the 3rd or 4th one in my huge extended collection). If you've never bought or owned an artwork before, now is the moment to start!

If you follow the link to 2nd Cannons below you will see you can pre-order your artwork at the discounted price of $27,50 which includes a DVD AND free shipping. Now I'm very excited to let 2nd Cannons and Julie explain a bit more to you:

2nd Cannons Publications is relieved (and very excited) to finally announce the release Julie Lequin's first book The Ice Skating Tree Opera - Director's Cuts (as a Book and DVD) . Now available for preorder, Julie's book will be released on Dec 15.

On Saturday December 15, we're hosting a Los Angeles "Book and DVD Launch Dancing House Partay" for two of our recent releases: Julie Lequin's Ice Skating Tree Opera - Director's Cuts and for Ami Tallman's There Weren't Many Girls Around So We Dated Ideologies, This Left Us Always on the Brink of War... details are below.

The discount: For our mailing list, The Ice Skating Tree Opera - Director's Cuts is available for preorder at a discounted price. Please access the discount here:


The details (From the desk of Julie):

Julie's Book is out, well on the 15th. But you can pre-order now!

Come to my Dancing Book Launch Home Partay. (Perhaps the last one.) - Julie [I certainly hope it's the first of many - Frenchy]

Julie worked (on and off/ but mostly on) this project for about 2 years. This is Julie's first publication ever (probably why it took so long). The book is very nice looking (about 23cm. x 18 cm.); it has a lot of colored pages (err… Brian complained), and some funny words. The DVD takes a while to watch so you're really getting a lot for your money. There are has some singing, gossips, and green screen videos. If you feel like investing, you can treat yourself with a copy of the "Limited Double Standard", that is the deluxe book cover (knitted).

The launch will take place at
250 North Avenue 57, Los Angeles 90042.
Saturday December 15, 7-10 PM

I am thinking of doing a small walk though of the book.

Julie is happy to share her launch event with her pal Ami Tallman, who will be releasing her book titled There Weren't Many Girls Around, So We Dated Ideologies. This Left Us Always on the Brink of War. We Often Discussed That a Likely Result of Battle Would Have Been More Girls to Go Around Amongst the Survivors, but We Quibbled Rather Than Acted, & Slept Alone in Our Cold Beds Dreaming of Glory. Julie and Ami have been friends for a while now so it's okay to share an event like this one.

About us: 2nd Cannons Publications was born in 2003 in Los Angeles, while Brian Kennon was walking from the living room to the kitchen. He never made it to the kitchen. Julie Lequin is a French Canadian who makes videos and other things such as list-making, stories, and props. She likes to create characters inspired by friends, her 2 parents, and NPR. Julie takes pleasure in imitating voices, thinking about outfits for videos, and checking nerds out while biking.

You can always buy (with a credit card) yourself a copy of Julie's The Ice Skating Tree Opera- Director's cuts by visiting the website or calling Brian's telephone number- that is: [I'm not putting Brian's number out here for all the telemarketers of the world to see, so just check the link, OK? - Frenchy]

The gossip column about the launch will be available here:

Julie Lequin Totally Deserves To Be Your Neighbor Or at Least Cubicle Mate

A while ago I posted a couple of "fake" New Yorker cartoons by Mark A. Rodriguez, which are in fact a conceptual art project*. Those had been forwarded to me by a common friend of Julie Lequin, who advised I asked Julie to see her work.
I diligently complied (I totally trust Da Best Curator In Town's advice) and Julie forwarded me links to two older videos she had made. I clicked on them and truly enjoyed them, first of all because it's refreshing to see video (as opposed to, say, narrative figurative painting), then because they were hilariously funny and did remind me slightly of an artist I adore, Michael Smith.

I love the self-deprecating irony of the artist as procrastinator, and the speech/accent reduction lesson is a) very Hollywood and b)something I totally relate to as a French-speaking expat. I'll be able to pronounce "th" when my US friends will be able to pronounce "r" and "u" correctly (not to mention when they stop pronouncing "t" as a "d").
What I like in Julie's work is how it doesn't take itself too seriously. After seeing her work I can't imagine Julie uttering statements such as " After MY death, I want museums to show MY WORK only the way I WANT" and "The Museum owes ME this because I AM the artist". I've heard this in real life and I really wonder how people can say this without feeling ridiculous and pompous. Seriously folks, being artists doesn't dispense you from being human, even if you are very, very successful, as in *straight-out-of-grad-school-successful*. It's not an excuse for behaving like self-absorbed egomaniacs. Honest.

Julie is also publishing a book that's coming up soon, the one she's speaking about in the second video. You can see some pictures above.
Her work is a first-person narrative of what it's like to be a young artist trying to make work in a new adopted country and having to contend with post-graduate school realities. And visa and job issues.
After seeing the two videos I'm sure you will share my enthusiasm for Julie's work. She so totally deserves to be your neighbor, or even your cubicle mate, and to instill a much-needed dose of pragmatic humor in the overblown LA art egoslandscape.
But there's a catch. Julie is French Canadian and right now, she needs a part-time job so she can stay here in LA and extend her visa. So if you guys can help her by letting her be your office or studio assistant, please drop me a line and I'll forward it to her. It would be a pity if she had to go back to Canada and couldn't share her work with us. Come on you guys, don't let Canada get her back!






* The complete series is intended as a groundbreaking new feature of Artforum, to introduce funny pages in the print edition. The idea would be to curate funny pages with other artists once the initial series had run its course. If someone at Artforum listens, please drop me a line and I'll forward to Mark.