Performance at Le Castel to promote NEW Laboratory

Title: Speak or Listen, Acrylic on canvas 50cm x 60cm

Last week, Lala Drona brought down the house with her debut performance in French at Le Castel, a private club  located in the 6^th arrondissement of Paris. 

Le Castel was founded by the French event coordinator, Jean Castel in 1962.  Many knew Jean Castel as “le roi des nuits parisiennes” (the king of Parisian nights), Private performances, artist-types and parties continue to roll through this institution today.   In the basement of the building, there are sofas and chairs surrounding a stage. On the stage last week, the painting titled “Speak of Listen” by Lala Drona was displayed.  Performance artist Wenjue Zhang, placed black boxes containing peep-holes around the room.  Inside said boxes, lied an image, erotic and explicit…saturated in colour.  Hypnotic music began to play in the background, and Lala Drona stepped onto the stage… (video below).

Lala Drona’s performance titled “Experiment 88: Speak or Listen” recounts an artist’s (Jade Edwards’) experience in Lala Laboratories.  The artist is the subject in an experiment that will result in artistic revelation (article continues below):

still from performance at Le Castel

Sources say that this performance serves as an advertisement for the new Lala Laboratory.  Since 2014, Lala has had quite a bit of trouble due to her unconventional inspiration extraction methods from muses.  She has gone to Art Prison, inspired muse protests and strikes, and inadvertently caused changes in muse rights legislature. After the Lala Laboratory explosion in 2016, Lala Drona has simultaneously been looking for a place to put down roots, whilst also dodging investigations into inhumane Lala Laboratory experiments.

still from performance at Le Castel

Since 2017, Lala Drona has been traveling the world in the form of an exhibition tour.  She stated last week, “I’ve been traveling in order to look for a new place for Lala Laboratories. And finally, I’ve found it.”  Lala Laboratories, formerly “The Lala Laboratory” had to change its name due to copyright issues, but according to Lala, that wasn’t the only change that took place. “Lala Laboratories no longer includes muses in their research and experiments.  After the protests, the project got a bad rap.  It was almost impossible to get anything done due to new bureaucracy and protections.  Now, thanks to the former muse experiments, we’ve collected all the data that we need, and it’s time to open our experiments to their proper demographic.  Now, Lala Laboratories serves to enhance artist inspiration and methods, through experiences catered to each individual artist.  The performance at Le Castel was a simulation of that…sort of an advertisement for the new laboratory, if you will.”

When questioned about the location of Lala Laboratories, Lala explained: “It took going all over the world, and encountering every problem imaginable to get to the solution.  Lala Laboratories has installed itself in the intangible: in the virtual spaces online, in every conversation, and in every collaboration and project connecting to us.  If you have interacted with myself, my Drones, muses, and my community in any way, you ARE part of Lala Laboratories.”

La Rupture

Lala Drona has made her first artistic appearance since arriving in Beijing, but one could say she’s not quite all there.  In her newest performance art video, Lala Drona sports a broken tooth.  In typical “Lala” fashion, she gives no explanation to what happened, hoping that the art will be enough to satiate her followers.  The peculiar thing is, this gaping smile isn’t all that unfamiliar.  Lala Drona emerged broken-toothed in February 2013, just some four years ago right after she moved to Paris, France.  Why Lala is sporting a look from four years ago is past us, and whether or not she sprouts the next fashion tooth-trend is up for debate.
But in all seriousness, it is quite strange that the last two times Lala has changed countries, she has emerged with a broken tooth.  As the video mentions both Paris and Beijing, one can infer that Lala is not only talking about her dental fracture, but also the fracture that comes from leaving a country, and its people behind.  She also states that she doesn’t have much time [before someone comes and repairs her.]  In the performance, Lala expresses a desperation to explore her moment of “rupture,” before someone comes and “fills in the gap” so to speak.
We can all relate to this feeling of rupture, whether it be saying goodbye to someone, or moving on from a particular stage in our lives.  Most of us try to push through it as quickly as possible.  However, in her video performance, “La Rupture,” Lala asks us to pay attention to it, to live it and to appreciate it while it’s there.  It could be where your rawest creativity exists.

Based on a fact.

Percy Fleming, Beijing’s Booming Magazine

Lala’s Latest Performance Art

Photos by Yegan Mazandarani (Agence Sauvage)

Lala has sent shockwaves through internet video platforms after the release of her video titled “Lala and Drone #1’s Latest Performance.” Despite media pressure, she continues to plea the fifth when asked to comment on the performance’s legitimacy.

The video begins with photographer Yegan Mazandarani shooting Lala Drona and Drone #1 in their classic black Drone attire and sunglasses. An instrumental version of “We found love” plays in the background as the camera follows the frantic scene into Paris’ Town Hall.  For the main event of the performance, Lala Drona and Drone #1, stand in front of the French authorities in order to merge their assets and forge an alliance in legal matrimony.  After a quick ceremony (and a very convincing kiss) the couple move on to the second act of the performance: signing the documents that legalize their union.  Next, the couple exit their performance to the song “Young, wild and free.”

But did they really get legally married?  As we recall, Drone #1 and Lala Drona have a rocky past.  His breach in Drone Code resulted in his exile from the Lala World,
followed by the gruesome Drone-Muse experiment which inspired Lala Drona’s tryptic Je suis la fin qui justifie les moyens (I am the end that justifies the means).  Since then, Drone #1 underwent a new Drone Reprogramming Procedure, and hasn’t left Lala’s side ever since.  Perhaps Lala has forgiven Drone #1, and this alliance is a reconciliation of all past indiscretions?  This could be the reason why the song “I want you back” by Micheal Jackson also plays in the video.

No sources have come forward in order to debunk the supposed marriage. However, another possibility could be that Lala Drona and Drone #1 legitimately married for art’s sake.  Perhaps the duo is aligning in order to critique the traditional act of marriage as “performance.”

Journalists continue to look for answers, however the officials at Town Hall will not speak to whether or not the wedding was legitimate.  It is possible that Lala could have pulled a few strings in order to create some cheap internet buzz.  Sooner or later, the truth will reveal itself.

Based on a fact.

Tony Jericho, PerformArt Magazine

 

La Politesse.

In the form of video performance, Lala Drona recounts her personal experience living abroad.  After moving to Paris, France in 2012, Lala films herself performing in French for the very first time.

She speaks with her face blanketed in flesh-colored mesh; she pulls and pushes through the material, illustrating the tension between the “natural” and “foreign” behaviours she experiences abroad.  The camera frame often segments parts of the face, zooming in on her mouth in order to draw focus to her words.  The video successfully transmits an oppressive ambience, the pressures of living up to societal norms when immersing yourself into a new culture.

Based on a Fact

Damian Fuller, Minimalism and Manners Blog

 

RECAP 2014

For those of you who desire a bit of consolidation of last year’s news:  The Lala World Recap 2014.

The city of lights has not been kind to Lala.  Arrested for spray painting the city walls and landing in urgent care are just a few of Lala Drona’s mishaps since her arrival.

Lala Drona in urgent care.

Lady Paris seems to have made Lala Drona harder, and the struggle has awakened her darker tendencies.  The year 2014 marks the year of transition, when Lala assumes her title of “art villain.”

On various occasions, Lala has compared her artistic process to theft.  “I steal others ideas because I don’t have my own” (2014 Art Prison Interview, L.D. Times Magazine). However, Lala pushed her artistic process an inch too far at an annual Paris “Perve Grandma Convention,” where she attempted to steal a Fred Le Chevalier piece from his oldest fan.

And Lala did not stop there.  Later on that year, she allegedly stole thousands of dollars from desperate YouTube insomniacs who had fallen victim to her fake sleep hypnosis video.  Although the media seemed to focus on Lala’s dark side, BOAF attempted to show the human behind the artist as well.

On April 24th, Lala traveled back to her home town Denver, Colorado in order to finalize preparations for a long-awaited hand transplant.  Comments filled message boards questioning the authenticity (and humanity) behind the art pieces created since Lala’s mechanical hand acquisition.

Lala caught on the streets of Paris wearing a splint.

How would the prosthetic affect her paintings and would it cramp her hand dancing style?  Before leaving Denver, Lala put on a spontaneous showing of her “Pre-Lala” work in an exclusive at-home art garage sale.

Along with the art garage sale last year, Lala committed other acts that were difficult to understand.  In 2014, Lala’s face appeared twice in the subway station.  The first was in Paris.  She appeared holding an apple in a

Translation: The #1 extramarital dating site made by women./ Dare. Bite. Taste.

Geeden advertisement for adulterous online-dating (Lala later  painted this experience). Next the artist appeared in a Berlin subway station, pants down in public.  While the Geeden advertisement left fans wondering if Lala had sold out, the no-pants Berlin display just left them confused.

Other stunts this year were much easier to understand.  To prove she isn’t all bad, Lala showed her support in adopting mutant bees in Paris.  Her videos went viral in France when she took to the streets and battled against censorship with her “Don’t Retouch This” campaign.  The artist “pulled a Banksy” when she sold originals of her artwork cheaply on the streets of Paris at the same time as galleries sold her work for thousands at the FIAC.  She even had a little fun as she was seen shopping and drinking champagne at Paris’ 2014 Vogue Fashion Night Out.

    However, it wasn’t all fun and games last year.  In 2014, Lala launched the construction of her Warholian dream:  The Lala Laboratory.  During the construction, tensions in art politics were at a high.  Muses were on strike and Lala’s unorthodox muse practices were thrown into the light.  

Journalists infiltrated what is thought to be the Lala Laboratory and discovered a Muse Sweatshop.   In an attempt to evade the Art Guild (the authorities), Lala invited journalists to a fake Lala Laboratory tour.  The police were called, and Lala Drona was arrested on the spot for trespassing.

The board members of the Art Guild found Lala guilty of Muse Abuse and Torture in the first degree and she was sentenced to spend one month in Paris Art Prison.  In prison, Lala Drona gave an interview, revealing for the first time ever, the method behind her madness.
Upon her release, a masked man broke into the prison mail room and stole Lala’s prison letters written to Shutupi.  The unknown man published the letters, revealing perhaps more than Lala would have liked regarding her feelings towards the Art Guild.

Out of jail and straight to work, the artist began preparations for her anticipated exhibition.  After one small exhibition in May 2013 on arrival in Paris, one year later, Lala landed a place on the walls of Düo Gallery.  The exhibition titled From the Bed to the Lab presented a retrospective look on her paintings created in Paris, all connected by the theme of the bed.

Photography and text by Richard Beban from Paris Play.

The three series exhibited were the Breast Series: a confrontation with a difficult past/ the bed a place of healing.  The Sexe Sans Sex Series: a series of wanderings, and an analysis of her outside world/ the bed a place of experimentation.  The Lala World Series: Lala’s new series, where she commits to painting the Lala World (the fictionalized articles found on Based on a Fact) in order to move freely between the virtual and the real, and create her own world/ the bed a place of dreams–and her dream: The Lala Lab.

Following a successful exhibition of her world, Lala plans to continue following her dark path.  She’s back to her old methods of abuse and torture in order to extract inspiration from her muses and has marked the beginning of 2015 with the banishment of her beloved Drone #1.  Only time will tell what’s to come of Lala and her Drones, Muses and Laboratory…

See news updates on The Lala World here.

Based on a Fact RECAP 2014

Reporting on Lala Drona Exhibition 2014

The exhibition “FROM THE BED TO THE LAB” covered by journalist Karim Mouici.

“Retouching is the new censorship,” says Lala

Last night before Paris’ Nuit Blanche (an artistic event that lasts all night once a year) Lala Drona posted a behind the scenes look at the preparation for her performance “Don’t Retouch This.”

Internet Drones everywhere started buzzing and met up with Lala later that night for the debut of the artistic campaign.  She was spotted around Paris asking passer-byes to hold a sign saying “don’t retouch this” over a part of their body they didn’t think was perfect.  The idea was to denounce the unobtainable ideal of perfection the media sells…and to accept ourselves the way we are.

Critics noticed that Lala held the sign in front of her chest almost the entire night.  “Lala has been struggling with the idea of perfection in our society since her breast reconstruction.  This is a part of her journey to self-acceptance,” states Kit Feller, New York art critic.

Onlookers were surprised and animated by the performance.  “I want to do this with my friends,” said Florence Sibot, an onlooker at the Nuit Blanche.  “I think she is might be starting a movement here.”  Since last night’s performance, 20 documented #dontretouchthis videos have been published online.  A good start for the campaign.

Based on a Fact

Sneak Peek of the Lala Laboratory

With construction of the Lala Laboratory underway, Drones everywhere are trying to get a closer look.  Lala releases a video as a sneak peek at what will be the Lala Lab.  Critics say that the notebook in the video represents the Lala Laboratory… all of Lala Drona’s big ideas in the notebook are to be made reality in the Lala Laboratory.  Music The Big Dream by David Lynch.  See more videos by Lala here.