I apologize for the length of time between posts, been busy with the election and Barrett.
*** Please, all Americans VOTE & help others VOTE who need assistance ***
In this post, I include links for articles or videos – please use them to make your own determinations, do not rely on mine.
The following pieces are not plainly in the RO but they are germane to stalking and cyber threat allegations in the RO filing. The incident and posts at issue stem from inquiries concerning the management of X Artists’ Books (XAB), particularly the fair and equitable treatment of a female XAB artist.
Note: due to the limit imposed on the number of files that can be uploaded per LSA post, the incident and posts at issue will be addressed in a separate post.
(1) Reeves wrote a poem, Ode to Happiness that was edited by Janey Bergam and illustrated by Grant. Steidl published this collaboration in April 2011.
(2) Reeves wrote more poetry, Grant photographed him and again Steidl published this collaboration. Shadows came out in March 2016.
In June 2016, at the UNAIDS Gala in Switzerland, Reeves and Grant were Event Chairs. Media prior to the event highlighted that Reeves would be sharing his poetry, “The dinner will be punctuated by a special reading of “Shadows” by Keanu Reeves, based on his collaboration with artist Alexandra Grant.” Photos of the event showed Grant on stage with Reeves reading Reeves’ poetry from Shadows in tandem with the accompanying photos on a large screen behind them.
Note 1: there is nothing untoward with Grant being on stage with Reeves reading from Shadows since she collaborated with him, plus her photos of Reeves were shown while the reading was taking place.
a. It would be untoward for Reeves and Steidl to be on stage, even though Steidl has name recognition and is the founder of the publishing house for Shadows.
b. The only scenario more ridiculous and insulting than above would be if Reeves and Steidl were on stage reading while Grant sat in the audience. That would have turned into a flock of tweets haranguing about male power and privilege, asserting domination over women and attempting to subjugate them and their creativity. And if this had happened, I would have supported Grant and berated Reeves and Steidl, soundly.
Note 2: UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is a remarkable organization and proceeds from this GALA helped them in achieving their vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. This was a noble choice and a good PR decision for the book. Reeves’ name recognition is well used here.
Note: How intertwined are Grant and Christensen: Grant became an ordained minister in June 2019 so she could officiate Christensen’s wedding. Grant’s comment on her IG account where she posted the photo of her online license, “It’s official, I’m the marrying type.
Christensen scheduled a PR event and she interviewed Grant around the topic of “being a woman in publishing” where Grant explains why and how her book, The Artists’ Prison came into existence. The relevant point in the conversation comes around the 30 minute mark --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BKxyZh7154.
Grant’s version of XAB’s inception in her own words:
“I hadn’t intended to start X Artists’ Books. I wrote a book called The Artists’ Prison in 2013… E. Wood who is a wonderful writer and she does these very dark but like wonderfully twisted, vivacious drawings and I asked her to collaborate with me interpreting the book in a way that I could never have imagined. So we put this package together and we got a book deal and then the issue of the film and TV rights came up.”
“So I, of course, to solve an issue around that said, “I’ll just start a publishing house.” So I came up with the name X Artists’ Books. I went to Keanu and I said look I’m going to do this thing X Artists’ Books. I liked X because Keanu and I had done a book called Ode to Happiness where the last page had an X and I thought that had sort of become our signature when we did artists books together and so much of my confidence of learning what’s possible in terms of publishing came from working with Gerhard Steidl and doing the artists books that Keanu and I published. So I had this idea for X Artists’ Books and the next thing I knew J. Fleischmann who was designing The Artists’ Prison said I have a secret book called High Winds. High Winds was a secret collaboration that she and S. Oswald had been working on for three years.”
Note: there are a few aspects here worth noticing.
First, Wood not only illustrated the book with Grant, but she also helped put the book pitch package together that got a book deal.
Note: Literary agents (which nearly all major publishing houses require) normally put together your pitch packet for you and then shop it to the publishers.
Logical question: if you already got a book deal, then it is a moot point about the film rights then coming up, right? Simply tell them, “no” on the film rights and let them publish the book.
More likely, the book, TV, film and play rights were all negotiated at the same time in one contract (standard for major publishing houses) – so there was no book deal and then an issue of film rights coming up.
Second, Gerhard is the founder of Steidl and Grant says she worked directly with him, plus Steidl had already published two books of Grant (with Reeves). So it is conceivable she was able to pitch a book idea without an agent or put together the pitch with Wood because she knows what Steidl would like.
The most likely scenario is that the publisher believed the book was not good enough to make money so they passed unless they could retain TV/film rights that they hoped they could work with Reeves on and make money.
Bottom line: the book would not sell without Reeves attached to it – and Grant would have learned this the hard way when she tried to get a book deal without him. No film rights (colloquially known as Reeves rights here), no book deal.
Third, and this is the most telling: Grant came up with the “X” in XAB before she even approached Reeves because she saw it as her signature with Reeves and a way to form a collaboration with him where none really existed – he had nothing to do with writing, illustrating or designing her book. But she needed his money and his name. Wood illustrated the book and Fleischmann designed it.
Fourth, the obvious way to solve the issue of retaining rights would be to self-publish. Grant is disingenuous when she says her solution to retaining her film rights was to start a publishing house. The publishing house – with Reeves - was to solve the next issue of how to get people to buy her book.
(4) Also, in 2017, Reeves gave an interview to Men’s Fitness where he was quoted as saying he did need to work for money because he had wanted to help a friend and had signed something which turned into something else that had come back to haunt him. Reeves does not say it is XAB, but financing a publishing house is very expensive and his other expensive venture, ARCH, came about from Reeves approaching Hollinger. And the timing fits, XAB opened in 2017.
Note: according to Reeves at another XAB PR event that appears later in this post – the PEN event -- XAB was started in May 2016.
(5) Co-founders of XAB are Reeves, Grant and Fleischmann. Grant is the Manager for XAB and files the California state paperwork. The address she uses for XAB on the paperwork is 1610 West 7th Street, *****.
Note: this address is part of an allegation lodged by Grant in the RO filing.
(6) As mentioned in the XAB inception paragraph earlier, Grant asked artist E. Wood to collaborate with her. “The suite of images by E. Wood really are autonomous parallel companions rather than illustrations.” Grant says, “It’s why we focus on collaborations…”
(7) October 2017 was the European launch of XAB. The European launch was centered around the co-founders – Grant, Reeves and Fleischmann -- and the coolness of “a publisher focusing on artists’ books and collaborations.” Collaborators Oswald and Fleischmann read from High Winds. The XAB artist who collaborated with Grant on The Artists’ Prison, E Wood, was not included -- instead of Wood reading from the book with Grant, Reeves did the reading – and the book signing.
The first few minutes of the video show Reeves at a book-signing table seated between Grant and Oswald. After Grant finishes signing her book, instead of handing it back to the book buyer, she slides the book in front of Reeves for him to sign.
At 8 minutes into the video, Grant says hello to Wood in the front row.
Wood is present at the book signing of The Artists’ Prison, which she collaborated on and illustrated – but Reeves was in her place at the artist’s table seated next to Grant, signing her book.
The stage is set with a large screen, similar to the UNAIDS Gala, for illustrations that accompany the text being read. The next portion of the event is Reeves and Grant reading from The Artists’ Prison while the actual XAB book artist who collaborated with Grant on the book sat in the audience.
Grant and Reeves read from the book until 25:00. The reading is punctuated by “redacted” since many words are blacked out and the illustrations are not visible on the video so it is slightly boring listening to Reeves and Grant read.
From 26:00 to 37:00 Oswald reads from his book, High Winds, which he collaborated with Fleischmann on. Oswald actually says the images by Fleischmann are the vehicle for the words. Again, you cannot see the illustrations so it is not as enjoyable but it is easy to follow and interesting – it’s a bedtime story about a trans guy who can’t sleep.
Around the 1:02 mark in the video, Grant says, “Keanu and I launched X Artists’ books in Paris in November.”
In tandem with this verbal mistake by Grant to exclude Fleischmann as the third person who launched XAB in Paris, the XAB person assigned to sending bio information to PEN for the write-up did a horrendous job with the facts and fair play-- co-founder Fleischmann was not recognized for her artistic and creative endeavors in founding XAB, instead she received “with images by” alongside her name while Grant had an entire paragraph dedicated to herself.
The first few frames of the video include a shot of a neon sign Where Love Lives and shots of XAB books The Artist’s Prison and High Winds on a table for sale. It’s a PR branding gig for Grant set up by Christensen as evidenced by the design of the set – Grant is framed between a LOVE print and the Where Love Lives neon sign. It’s not subtle.
The inception of XAB in the article is different from Grant’s in her interview this same month. This PR piece gives the impression that Reeves launched XAB with Grant as a natural progression of their long-standing business relationship of collaborating on book projects– and for Reeves to publish Zus which he had been working on with Benoit.
Takeaways from this article:
Co-founder Fleischmann is mentioned once –
“Three X Artists’ Books releases, clockwise from top: “High Winds,” by Sylvan Oswald and Jessica Fleischmann; “(Zus),” by Benoît Fougeirol and Jean-Christophe Bailly; “The Artists’ Prison,” by Alexandra Grant, with images by Eve Wood.”
And never as a co-founder –
“The actor and his business partner, the visual artist Alexandra Grant, have created X Artists’ Books, an imprint full of esoteric titles.”
XAB has a chic business office (not the address used by Grant in her filings) –
“Keanu Reeves at Los Angeles’s NeueHouse, a coworking space that he and his business partner use as their office.”
From NeueHouse’s website: NeueHouse is the private workspace and cultural home for creators, innovators, and thought leaders.
XAB is alluded to as an offshoot of the Shadows collaboration; Grant’s publishing solution for her book The Artists’ Prison is never mentioned –
The exhibitions for Shadows “prompted Grant and Reeves to consider the experimental capabilities of book publishing. ‘Part of the genesis of X Artists’ Books was that these projects might become a performance or an exhibition,’ Grant says.”
Reeves is hands on with XAB --
“Not that Reeves is simply X’s money man. He and Grant make most business decisions together, including what to publish.”
(11) In May 2019, XAB hired a Project Manager/Editor named A. Rabinovitch who graduated from California College of the Arts, the same arts college as Grant. To further blur the lines of professionalism, this XAB Project Manager/Editor also works/volunteers at Grant’s private for profit venture grantLOVE project pop up shop and took a photo for Grant’s social media posts.
Yet -- on February 25, 2020, an article on California art presses was instructed to remove Fleischmann as a co-founder of XAB from the piece.
In my experience, co-founders are only removed from history in instances where they have committed horrible acts of moral turpitude (not likely here). Conversely, in some instances they themselves ask to be removed because they find it unbearable and embarrassing to be associated with the organization. The latter is not the case according to Fleischmann’s website (about — still room) where she says she is “co-founder of X Artists’ Books – a publisher of high-quality artist-centered books.”
Unfortunately, this leaves the unmerited correction to remove Fleischmann as a co-founder to have come from XAB, which would be from co-founder and Manager Grant, Project Manager Rabinovitch who was hired by Grant, and/or co-founder Reeves.
Reeves may not be the Manager of XAB but he is RESPONSIBLE for what goes on at XAB. He finances XAB so the only way Grant manages XAB is with him signing checks. XAB does not exist without Reeves’ fame and fortune – it gives him power.
Reeves by all public accounts, would never abuse power. Sadly, partiality is a means of giving someone else power by proxy.
Note: mis-treatment of an XAB artist by someone in power is the key underlying component of a stalking and harassment claim in the RO filing.
In the final analysis, anyone responsible for a company should be able to discern the difference between helping out a friend and providing inappropriate preferential treatment to a colleague in a professional environment.
One is an act of kindness and the other is a form of exploitation of others who put their trust in you to be honorable and fair.
