On Friday June 21st, 7pm - 11pm, LAST Projects gallery hosts the closing event for Vidal Shaboom…by Jerome, a visual art installation / performance / hair salon-inspired project by arts trio SHABOOM! (which includes noted performer Paul Soileau aka Christeene). Imagine the illegitimate three-headed lesbian/queer lovechild of Paul McCarthy and Johanna Went, and you begin to glimpse the cheap absurdity, depraved failure, and idiotic slapstick that is SHABOOM! SHABOOM! call themselves: art for the masses that forces culture and critique through the clown horn of queer slapstick. Entitled ’The Grand Closing of The Grand Closing Event’, this event includes demented performances by three notorious SHABOOM! alter egos: ‘Penny’ who will be scheduling hair appointments, and ‘Cherie’ & ‘Vance’ who will be providing complimentary salon makeovers. SHABOOM! is a manic, multi-media, slapstick performance art collaboration between artists Paul Soileau (Christeene), painter Silky Shoemaker, and performer Lex Vaughn. Utilizing performance art, installation, painting, sculpture, drawing, and any cheap medium available at low-cost, SHABOOM! creates spaces for pleasure, liberation and gay absurdity while exhibiting an impressive lack of good judgement. SHABOOM! recently performed a sold out one-night show in May at the Elysian theatre in Elysian Valley, described as "a spectacle teetering at the edge of disaster, creating actions of pleasure and idiocy, in old wigs. SHABOOM! is not just an experiment with failure, but a jubilant funeral procession for any idea of success, driven by maddening determination and an impressive lack of good judgement. Entitled ’The Grand Closing of The Grand Closing Event’, this event includes demented performances by three notorious SHABOOM! alter egos: ‘Penny’ who will be scheduling hair appointments, and ‘Cherie’ & ‘Vance’ who will be providing complimentary salon makeovers. SHABOOM! is a manic, multi-media, slapstick performance art collaboration between artists Paul Soileau (Christeene), painter Silky Shoemaker, and performer Lex Vaughn. Utilizing performance art, installation, painting, sculpture, drawing, and any cheap medium available at low-cost, SHABOOM! creates spaces for pleasure, liberation and gay absurdity while exhibiting an impressive lack of good judgement. SHABOOM! recently performed a sold out one-night show in May at the Elysian theatre in Elysian Valley, described as "a spectacle teetering at the edge of disaster, creating actions of pleasure and idiocy, in old wigs. SHABOOM! is not just an experiment with failure, but a jubilant funeral procession for any idea of success, driven by maddening determination and an impressive lack of good judgement. SHABOOM! is theatre for the masses that forces culture and critique through the clown horn of queer slapstick." For more information, interview opportunities, or to schedule a gallery viewing, please contact Matt Johnstone Publicity. Press Stills (for approved media use only): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y0Bd3c5xspUbTgM9itT1Dtx5fSxV1bWb?usp=sharing SHABOOM! performance trailer (1 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc7z8g90CK0 Shaboom performance excerpt (6 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9DYlkDm7kE&t=145s Please see below for full press release, including additional information on SHABOOM! Thank you, Matt Johnstone Matt Johnstone Publicity Los Angeles / Zurich Ph: +1 323 938 7880 Email: matt.mjpublicity@gmail.com SHABOOM!: Vidal Shaboom…by Jerome Paul Soileau, Silky Shoemaker, Lex Vaughn The Grand Closing of The Grand Closing Event Friday June 21 from 7-11pm On view May 24 thru June 21 2024 LAST Projects Gallery Sundays 1-6 and by appt. Inquiries: info@lastprojects.org LAST Projects Gallery 206 S Ave 20, LA CA 90031 SALE SALE SALE! CLEARANCE EVENT! EVERYTHING MUST GO! BUYERS NAME YOUR PRICE! BOGO BOGO BOGO! Please join us for the Grand Closing of the Grand Closing of legendary Lincoln Heights salon and “artistic experience” Vidal Shaboom…by Jerome at LAST Projects Gallery. Jerome is now, famously, dead. Desperate to empty the inventory and pay off an alarming but unspecified amount of debt, the salon’s three remaining employees will be auctioning off the entire shop piecemeal to anyone who names a price. Snatch up a bottle of discontinued Janay Natay hair/body/eyewash or head home with a figurine from Jerome’s world class salt-dough menagerie! EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!! NO OFFER TOO RUDE!!! Other inventory includes: signed headshots of Lisa Rinna, Phyllis Diller, and Nell Carter, a houseplant made of porn, and piles and piles of hair. As always, “Cherie” and “Vance” will be available for complimentary salon appointments during the event, and “Penny” will be there to schedule everyone. Come grab the remnants of a life well-lived and send off a Lincoln Heights legend in (what else?)…STYLE! About SHABOOM! and Vidal Shaboom…by Jerome LAST Projects Gallery and SHABOOM! Are thrilled to present a visual art installation/performance project: Vidal Shaboom…by Jerome. SHABOOM! is a slapstick performance art collaboration between Silky Shoemaker, Paul Soileau and Lex Vaughn. Exhibiting an impressive lack of good judgment, SHABOOM! creates spaces of pleasure and liberation. Over their 8 years together they have performed at many sordid and illustrious venues such as: The Elysian Theatre, Kampnagel, Dixon Place, The Museum of Human Achievement, and several gay basements. Vidal Shaboom..by Jerome, is an absurdist creation of a hair salon that has fallen on last times. With the recent death of its owner, Jerome, the three remaining “employees” will celebrate his legacy with an everything-must-go clearance sale of salon inventory, merchandise, and artistic memorabilia, as well as an all-you-can-eat deviled egg tray. More Info: https://linktr.ee/shaboomshaboomshaboom IG: shaboom_shaboom_shaboom SHABOOM! Artist Bios: Paul Soileau is a performer and artist best known for his personas CHRISTEENE and Rebecca Havemeyer. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and spends his time working between said personas, the performance group SHABOOM!, painting, songwriting, and emptying the litterbox of his cat, Tickles Pickles. https://linktr.ee/paulsoileau IG: paulsoileau Silky Shoemaker is an artist from central Pennsylvania. She makes work that explores what it is like to be gay, gross, and lonely. Recent activity includes shows at Art Yard in Frenchtown, NJ and LAST Projects in LA, and dancing backup with possum punk Christeene. https://www.silkyshoemaker.com/ Lex Vaughn is a multi-disciplinarian whose character based work revolves around gay absurdity and butch viz. She is a third turd in the performance trio SHABOOM! with Paul Soileau and Silky Shoemaker and one half of lez art duo, FFTWINZ with Beth Schindler. Lex has been in many Peaches videos and thinks that menopause isn't that cool. https://www.fftwinz.com/about About LAST Projects: LAST Projects is an artist-run gallery, co-founded by Ilona Berger and Andrew Wingler in 2013. LAST began its existence on Hollywood Blvd, and in 2017 relocated to a storefront in Lincoln Heights. LAST Projects was created to foster unconventional art, installation, and performance; cultivate a platform for artists working outside of traditional institutions; and support a diverse intergenerational scene. Over a decade-long run LAST, has hosted such artists as Xara Thustra, Dorian Wood, Craig Calderwood, Sahar Khoury, Mario Ayala, Sherrie Rose, Bruce La Bruce and the 2019 Queer Biennial. In 2022 LAST produced an 80-year retrospective for then 102 year-old artist Ernest Rosenthal. Notable guest curators have included Sahar Khoury and Alicia McCarthy. In December 2023, LAST Projects was featured in Matthew Stromberg's Hyperallergic article While Others Remain Silent, These Art Spaces Are Vocally Pro-Palestine. LAST Projects shows and artists have been written about in numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, and Artillery magazine. LAST also has a connection to the Bay area arts community, which has led to shows curated by Alicia McCarthy and Sahar Khoury, Silky Shoemaker and Samara Halperin, which led to LAST presenting Vidal Shaboom…by Jerome. Outside of LAST, Andrew Wingler and Ilona Berger have collaborated on numerous videos, installations, and performances, and have exhibited both individually and as a duo in galleries, museums, and alternative spaces in the United States and Europe. They are curating a group show and exhibiting their own work in Berlin at Kulturpalast Wedding in July, 2024. More info: http://www.lastprojects.org/ IG: last_projects/