SHABOOM: PRESUMED IGNORANT is the first institutional exhibition of the collective SHABOOM—created by artists Silky Shoemaker, Paul Soileau, and Lex Vaughn. On view from October 5, 2024–January 26, 2025, the project takes up the golden era of '90s court tv with an installation that will be activated by the most juvenile of antics, as well as billboards and happenings in the wild co-produced by Shandaken Projects. Embracing slapstick, SHABOOM presents scenes that teeter on the edge of disaster and teem with slips, flops, and the cheapest of pleasures. 

A newly commissioned performance by SHABOOM premiered at Art Omi on October 5, 2024 on the occasion of the exhibition's opening

Mining lines and interstitial scenes from Hollywood Babylon-era pictures and low-brow entertainment from the '30s to the present, SHABOOM dives headfirst into vignettes of mad determination with a good measure of delusion. Part variety show, part courtroom melodrama, SHABOOM’s project is faithful to two principles: THE SHOW MUST GO ON! and EVERYTHING MUST GO!

The thrill is in the giddy anticipation of collapse, in the forces running amuck, and things going deliciously wrong. Every clown knows that there will be a fall. In 1928, when Buster Keaton stood drunk on the set of Steamboat Bill Jr., with a building’s two-ton facade suspended by rope and only inches of clearance if he missed his mark during its fall, stagehands fainted on set. All that goes up must come down. The delirium of breakdown is intoxicating.  

Off-site programming is co-produced by Art Omi and Shandaken Projects and presented in collaboration with Shandaken Projects. Shandaken Projects and Storm King Art Center welcomed SHABOOM for a Shandaken: Storm King residency in 2023.

Curated by Sara O’Keeffe, Senior Curator, with Guy Weltchek, Curatorial Assistant.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Silky Shoemaker is an artist from central Pennsylvania. She makes work that explores what it is like to be gay, gross, and lonely. Silky's work has been shown at ArtHouse, Austin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Sculpture Center, New York; and many a punk house. Recent activity includes shows at Art Yard in Frenchtown, NJ and LAST Projects in LA, and dancing backup with possum punk CHRISTEENE.

Paul Soileau is a performer and artist manipulating and perverting the realms of gender, identity, and good taste. He is best known for his personas CHRISTEENE and Rebecca Havemeyer. Paul’s work has been presented in spaces ranging from The Barbican Centre in London to The Parkside Lounge in NYC. He has collaborated and performed with numerous acclaimed artists including Marc Almond, Justin Vivian Bond, Faith No More, David Hoyle, John Grant, Peaches, Kembra Pfahler, Fever Ray, and Suicide. He resides with his cat, Tickles Pickles, in Brooklyn, NY. 

Lex Vaughn is a multi-disciplinarian artist living in Los Angeles. Her work revolves around queer absurdity and butch visibility through performance, installation, video, and novelty items. Lex is one half of the multimedia gross-out duo, FFTWINZ, with Beth Schindler, whose focus is creating spaces and content for like minded gaywads. Lex has also been a drummer for several bands including Lesbians on Ecstasy, co-directed and starred in Peaches’ music video Rub, and has a terrible ventriloquist act: Graham and Diane.

SUPPORT

Art Omi’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature,  the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the Mellon Foundation.

Major support for this exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.