Victor Boullet

Aching

February 17 – March 31, 2025

To schedule an in person viewing appointment, contact info@2ndcannons.com. Located in Los Angeles, 90031.

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ACHING

I whinge and complain
Always the same / whinge and complain, literally with no gain
I whinge and complain / no gain
When should I complain?
Complain with no gain

This is a part of a lyric I wrote in 2014 while walking up and down Ullet Road in Liverpool. Today the lyric feels a tad embarrassing.

I insist upon standing in what is embarrassing: I refuse to be interesting.

I’d like to apologise for several negative remarks that I made at the Dulwich Picture Gallery about the painter Berthe Morisot. A few weeks after seeing her show, I came to understand, that my comments may have come from my perspective as a male painter. I said things like, she’s flimsy, unfocused, she’s in a rush, that’s badly painted and why paint that? It’s rubbish.

Berthe Morisot was married to Manet’s brother, Eugène, who was also a painter. They had one child and how I understand it, in the late 1800s women had to look after most things in any household. I am certain that it was even Berthe’s job to ensure that Eugène had time to paint. My judgment was perhaps hasty; her paintings must have been like a sponge to her daily chores, becoming her swift strokes that we see today. In other words everything soaks into your work and absolutely everything matters and counts.

A few years ago I invited 2nd Cannons to make a set of fanzines for Frenetic Happiness, which was my Social Publishing House. A project which is dead today. At the time of this invitation, we were moving house and studio, and I was asked to send images of my empty studio in Liverpool. I was stupid enough to include several unflattering pictures of myself, which I badly regret, because 2nd Cannons used the images for an entire fanzine. Size A4.

There was never a moment that I thought that the fanzines should not be printed, but rather the opposite; as long as my vanity suffered I was happy.

This is my third show with 2nd Cannons and I am showing fourteen self-portraits, 30cm x 35cm, oil on canvas, with tacks and staples. Because 2nd Cannons is an artist-run publishing project, with an exhibition space, I’m printing a fanzine and had plan to recreate a missing cassette for this show.

But sadly, because of licensing and copyright laws I wasn’t allowed to have the cassette made in England. I have uploaded the rejected folder so you can download and make the cassette yourself.  http://www.boullet.com/ride/roger.zip

The following text is the bridge that connects the printed matter to the paintings:

The spring of 1986 I recorded Ride the Lightning by Metallica from vinyl to tape. While recording this tape I had two friends there with me, Petter and Roger. From what I can remember, Petter arrived by car after work and Roger came by moped. Lol. While I recorded and discussed the album, Roger asked if he could borrow the tape until the next day, he wanted to make a copy. I gave him the tape, and I never saw it again.

Here is an email I just received from Roger.

On 21 Nov 2024, at 01:00, Roger Gxxxxxx <rogerxxxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

"Hi Victor. Did you know that I am trained as cabin crew for the SAS? I never took the job, as I had to go to the US to get to know my onion. That’s all I have to say, as I didn't see much.
Second vers. You had a blue Suzuki with red chocks and an effect exhaust system.
I had a ZR 50 SL SK with 76 cubic meters 11 horsepower cylinder with a Nikla effect exhaust system from SAS.
Your father arranged that. He was a baker in the SAS.
Mamma, my Mother has a permanent job as a secretary in Banana Mathisen from Bodø.
And as a ground hostess in SAS.
I don't know why I'm writing this. I just lost the thread.
I had a dream many years ago, back then and every time when.
I saw you walk in the park with a long, long beard. With God.
Well, fuck it. Here you have Metallica https://youtu.be/ZZ9cyFnkb38?si=7Hg52UlDtwXR9s

Vicki the Dicky.
I’m a bad mamma fuccer

Rog the Dog E

mail is translated from Norwegian.
SAS / Scandinavian Airline System.
Onion is Norwegian slang for dick. Løken

Roger was a close friend. He would show up and stay for entire summer holidays. At the tail end of the 80’s I severed all childhood friendships. Why? I felt stuck in the ethics of that working-class environment, and also the aesthetics felt suffocating to me. But Roger was upset, and other friends threatened me because I turned my back on them. There is no escape.

When I am in Oslo today I stay in the house where I was brought up. Therefore I occasionally bump into old faces; that is if I don’t manage to hide before they spot me. One summer day I saw Roger walking down our street. I shouted out of the window and ran downstairs for a chat. He seemed happy to see me. We talked. He came across as different and anchored in the past. Halfway into our conversation, I looked at him and said: Roger, when will you return my tape? He looked at me with a stare and answered: I’ll find it. It might be broken. To my surprise, two days later the doorbell rang and it was Roger. He said: Here’s your tape. I fixed it. I got to go. See you.

Thirty-seven years later, he returned my tape. For those thirty-seven years, the tape was never a daily nagging thing in my head, but the bloody cassette was stored in my memory. When I say I refuse to be interesting, I want to bring that back into this text because I feel it is urgent. I would rather that this stupid cassette became a layer of content in my work than some correct academic or zeitgeist approach to the same matter. And let me be clear, this is not nostalgia. I try to activate the idea that everything soaks into your work and absolutely everything matters and counts without thinking about the consequence or situation or who I think I am.

I emailed Roger to ask if he would write something for the 2nd Cannon show.

 On 25 Nov 2024, at 17:03, Roger Gxxxxxx <rogerxxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:H

i Victor.
I'm a bit busy at the moment.
I am in the process of furnishing my new residence.

https://no.pinterest.com/pin/425168021090094063/visual-search/?x=16&y=16&w=532&h=527&surfaceType=flashlight

Last time I was home, I bumped into him in the supermarket, and he kindly dropped me home in his late father’s BMW. Roger told me that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, something that actually made sense to me, and I had, of course, heard talk of it. To me, his memory is still so sharp about the time we were best friends, while my memory is cynically selective.

Victor Boullet
Padbury 2025 

Katie Aliprando

The Whom Is Whom I Suppose I Know

Nov 18 - Dec 29, 2024

View exhibition

exhibition checklist

I work from a place of compiling notes, archiving images and ‘auditioning’ objects – combining a personal motivation to map out an implied space or imagined scenario. Like a transatlantic Hollywood accent, faint impressions are left and placed not entirely spelled out leaving a large space between the implied action and their interpretation(s).

The Whom Is Whom I Suppose I Know in part reveals an evolution of collage construction. These works, originally inspired by hotel stationery drawings from the likes of Martin Kippenberger and Yves Klein, function as a blueprint or mental mapping that begin with the intentions of creating my own customized stationery – a place to jot down notes and scout images from my archive of found internet and real life images as well as camera phone photos of various film, music video and television stills, all captured while consuming this content. These collected images develop ‘locations’ or ‘rooms’ leaving a new relationship, schematic stage or blank space open for text, fallen paper, temporary tattoos or envelopes skinned to reveal their privacy patterns. The stationery can then be printed out, scanned, blown up and rescanned or archived again before being framed. Note taking transforms into visual moves where words and objects interplay and possibly mean one and the same thing(s) or not.

Simultaneously, I also write in a composition notebook while scouting images, preparing for the unfolding of a laid out network of ‘auditioned’ objects and their surviving traces that best translate their own or my own imagined fragmented actions. These objects I think of as nouns that transform into verbs or imagined actions when laid out. They can be as simple as thinking he is lifting and they are hiding, or as complex as he builds a text trellis because he is mute and she peeks through because she sees only in lines and dots. There tends to be an ongoing theme of miscommunication or shortcomings assigned to a team of human traits and personas all layered within a playground of preverbal development.

- Katie Aliprando

Magnus Frederik Clausen and Brian Kennon with works by Finn Reinbothe

June 24 - July 28, 2024

For the inaugural show of 2nd Cannons new space in Los Angeles, an invitation to exhibit was extended to Danish artist Magnus Frederik Clausen. The subsequent conversation between Clausen and Kennon led to this uncredited exhibition with its mostly self-explaining title. As a part of his contribution to the show, Clausen curated a selection of works by fellow Danish artist Finn Reinbothe.

View exhibition

exhibition checklist

My journey as an artist has been shaped by collaboration and experimentation across various mediums. From filmmaking to writing and painting, my artistic evolution has been a tapestry woven with the threads of diverse influences.

During a trip to Poland in 2011, I stumbled upon a thought-provoking publication titled Altered Secession Catalogue - Christopher Wool (Josh Smith). I was not familiar with the artists involved, but I was intrigued by the bold juxtaposition of images the book is based on. Little did I know that this was a work by Brian Kennon, published by 2nd Cannons, which repurposed the work of Wool and Smith without permission. It would influence my perception of artistic freedom. The ethos of repurposing and reimagining continued to resonate with me, culminating in the present exhibition alongside Brian Kennon at 2nd Cannons.

Brian Kennon's publication for this exhibition, Magnus Frederik Clausen Clock Paintings, is central to the exhibition. The book continues Kennon’s exploration of authorship and collaboration. Several pages are left blank by choice – something I imagine as being every publisher or designer's worst nightmare — but this blank space is where Brian reminds us of his presence, or authorship (if there is a difference between the two). Complementing the publication, Brian has framed gallery advertisements, taken from recent art magazines, of galleries who assert their presence through a list of artist’s names.

Inspired by Kennon's principles, my series, Imagine Brian Kennon, took shape—a whimsical homage to artistic identity and imagination. In a playful nod to Josh Smith's Signature Paintings—which, being featured in the Altered Secession Catalogue mentioned above, served as my introduction to Kennon’s work— I embraced the role of "Brian Kennon," signing canvases with his fictitious signature to evoke a sense of artistic camaraderie. The series embarks on a journey of self-discovery, blurring the lines between reality and imagination.

While working on the series, Finn Reinbothe's work Untitled Words came to mind—a humorous critique of the art world's obsession with authorship and originality. Finn deftly navigates the fine line between homage and appropriation and shows how free an eye can be if we want it to see.

-Magnus Frederik Clausen