Laurie Anderson

PRESS RELEASE

Vito Schnabel is pleased to present Laurie Anderson: BOAT, the first exhibition of the artist’s paintings in New York. On display will be a new series of paintings that bring the scale of the theater onto the canvas. The show also includes a video installation, “From the Air”, in which Anderson has created a three dimensional holographic reality. A series of drawings titled “Lolabelle in the Bardo” depicts the forty-nine day transition described in “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” as the period between death and rebirth.

Painting is like improvising in music. Making these big gestures feels like playing the violin. So many of my projects lately have become screen based or extremely theoretical. I wanted the physicality and scale of painting. Making paintings is the closest I’ve come to making songs. Even though they take up a lot of room I love them as unwieldy things.  Much of my work comes from the theater world where sets are enormous. In fact, these paintings seem a bit on the small side.

“From the Air” – one of a series of video projections onto small clay figures – is my solution of how to put narrative and timing into three-dimensional imagery.

Boat is about the body: the body dissolving, the body making marks, the body on a very small scale, drawing and erasing the body. I could have called the show Body instead of Boat but that wouldn’t have suggested the way we manage to float in the middle of a vast shifting place.

-- Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned - and daring- creative pioneers. She is best known for her multimedia presentations and innovative use of technology.  As writer, director, visual artist and vocalist she has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music.

Her recording career, launched by “O Superman” in 1981, includes the soundtrack to her feature film “Home of the Brave” and “Life on a String” (2001). Anderson's live shows range from simple spoken word to elaborate multi-media stage performances such as “Songs and Stories for Moby Dick” (1999). Anderson has published eight books and her visual work has been presented in major museums around the world.

In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance “The End of the Moon”.  Film projects include a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film, “Hidden Inside Mountains”, created for World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. In 2007 she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. In 2008 she completed a two-year worldwide tour of her performance piece, “Homeland”, which was released as an album on Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Anderson’s solo performance “Delusion” debuted at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February 2010 and toured internationally throughout 2011.  A retrospective of her visual and installation work was exhibited in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in 2010.  In 2011 an exhibition of her visual work was shown at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. She is currently touring her new solo performance, “Dirtday!” and will premiere the piece she is writing for Kronos Quartet in January 2013. She is currently an artist fellow at EMPAC. Anderson lives in New York City.

 A catalog with texts by Lou Reed, Anne Carson and the artist will accompany the show.

126 Leroy Street
New York, NY 10014