Using the framing of organized spiritual practice, Church of Art encompasses the work of artists who seek healing and self-actualization through various disciplines. Staged in front of an installation by Veronique d’Entremont, Gregory Barnett will perform an interactive, durational work, before the Sunday Service begins at 5pm. Sermons will be delivered by Veronique d’Entremont and Kim Ye and Laub will lead us in song. Church of Art will conclude with fellowship, following the format of the bi-weekly Process Group that Kim and Veronique host at their art studio.

IF YOU CRY, CRY INTO YOUR SHRINE (2pm-4:30pm) Gregory Barnett
SERMONS – Sunday Service (5pm) Veronique d’Entremont and Kim Ye
Music throughout by Laub
PROCESS GROUP (6pm – 8pm)

Sunday Service – Sermons
Following a visit to Foursquare Church in Echo Park, a mega church founded by celebrity-preacher Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Veronique d’Entremont and Kim Ye were inspired to write their own sermons examining the tension between the emotional impulses of an artist’s practice and the desire for success. Mcpherson came to Los Angeles in 1918 with a dream of becoming famous, and quickly became the nation’s “first modern celebrity preacher,” with audience numbers topping any other prior touring event or theater in American History.  Through their sermons, Veronique d’Entremont and Kim Ye use the language and philosophies of self-help literature, mindfulness practices, ethical non-monogamy, and 12-step recovery to transcend their ego-driven motivations, internal conflicts and external pressures as practicing artists.

If You Cry, Cry Into Your Shrine
Holy Mother: Gregory Barnett
Sisters Of Mother: Stacy Dawson Stearns, Laura Fuller
In this re-staging of La Pieta, Holy Mother lays to rest the romanticization of martyrdom, offering her tears as salve to those affected by this ideal. You will rest in Her lap and know peace. She will bathe you in salted water and ideas of pain as currency will wash away from your body. You will retire understandings of sacrifice as your sole path towards salvation. When She whispers goodbye (God Be With You), you will remember only Her sweetness, as it is all She has given you.

SENSORY EXPERIENCES
(upstairs chapel)
Artwork by Veronica De Jesus

Rue: Explorations of Ether,Fire, Wata, and Gia
(entryway)
Artwork by Cole M. James

Gregory Barnett makes dances, altars, imagery, and stories and believes he is better for it. His durational work If You Cry, Cry Into Your Shrine, uses repetition, deconstruction, and mimetic choreography to locate junctures between lineage (memory) and prayer (desire) in an effort to fortify will. In lieu of pursuing a sociology degree, Gregory became a prostitute and children’s gymnastics instructor. He has shown work in Los Angeles and other cities since 2004.

Veronique d’Entremont (Boston, 1983) is a LA-based interdisciplinary artist, invested collaborative practice and community organizing.  Through reciprocal spiritual, pedagogical and studio practices, Veronique investigates art as a medium for healing individual and community experiences of trauma.  Her work explores how we are shaped by the social and institutional spaces we inhabit– from our families of origin to academic, religious and correctional institutions—and seeks to transform these spaces.  She has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Mexico City, and has lectured at UCLA, CalArts, California College of the Arts, Palomar College, and at California Rehabilitation Center, a prison in Norco, CA. In 2016 she co-founded The Liberated Art Collective, and facilitates healing art workshops with formerly-incarcerated and institutionalized individuals.

Veronica De Jesus is a visual artist raised in several American cities. She illustrates life as an American, in all its varied splendor. Drawing on pop culture icons, sports, heroes and villains, and more, she draws our complex world into focus. Her Memorial Drawings, an ongoing series of illustrations complemented with text, honor the many people who have influenced our collective culture and reflect on loss and mourning. Her work also explores identity and the ways we hide and reveal elements of our personalities. For over a decade, Veronica has been working with artists with disabilities, including at The Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco and NIAD (National Institute for Adults with Disabilities) in the SF East Bay. She is currently The Head Arts Facilitator of the Arts Programming and Exhibitions at UCPLA (United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles).

Laub (b. 1986, Waynesboro, VA) is an interdisciplinary artist who works across glass, ceramics, wood, textiles, sound, drawing, and music. His practice often considers his personal life, making objects, sensations, and worlds that speak to the difficulties and merits of human connection, self-care, and learning. By approaching tangible materials in creative ways, he materializes the fleeting and transitional nature of emotion and being, and makes visible the human necessity to process, connect, and care for one another. Laub’s work has recently been exhibited at Los Angeles Contemporary
Exhibitions, Visitor Welcome Center, Armory Center for the Arts, and Commonwealth and Council, and has been featured in Artforum, Los Angeles Times, and Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles. He holds an MFA in Glass from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Craft Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Cole M. James’ work is that of a negotiator, navigating the African Diaspora, circling the expanse of queerness and fumbling through womanhood.  James creates paintings, digital prints and video work that explore the intersections between digital production and the analog collections of lived experiences. James was born in Chicago and raised in Moreno Valley California.  She received a BA from Cal State San Bernardino and MFA from Claremont Graduate University James exhibits her work primarily in Los Angeles but has shown in New York, Miami and South Korea. She was awarded the Alfred B. Friedman Grant, Walker Parker Artist Fellowship, and Mignon Schweitzer Award. In addition to her art practice James is a Human Rights Advocate and community collaborative partner.  James has an installation up at the University of LaVerne titled Edifice Artifice until May 2019.  CM James works and lives in Los Angeles CA.

Kim Ye (b. 1984, Beijing, China) is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist whose work incorporates performance, video, sculpture, installation, and text. She received her MFA from UCLA (2012) and her BA from Pomona College (2007). Influenced by language and aesthetics from BDSM, drag, and other avenues for self-actualization, her work explores the inversion of power dynamics via situations of exchange and intimacy. She has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally at The Hammer Museum, Getty Center, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Material Art Fair, Human Resources, Machine Project, Morán Morán, Satellite Art Fair, and Visitor Welcome Center among others. As a visiting artist, she has taught and lectured at institutions such as Cal Arts, Pomona College, University of California Los Angeles, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Loyola Marymount University.

Church of Art is the first day of three days of programming at Human Resources organized by Veronique d’Entremont.

***We apologize but the HR bathrooms and second-floor are not wheelchair accessible.***