Visiting Artist: Laurie Anderson
Lecture by internationally renowned artist Laurie Anderson.
The Student Union Gallery of the University of Massachusetts Amherst is pleased to announce that the Spring 2007 semester marks the beginning of its 50th anniversary. We are proud to have sustained as an all student-run and non-profit art space on the University campus for all this time.
To mark the importance of this anniversary, the gallery is planning a special event for the UMass students. We will present a lecture/presentation by the internationally renowned artist Laurie Anderson.
In 1975, Ms. Anderson performed in the Student Union Gallery as part of a workshop. She will return to the Student Union Ballroom to discuss her life experiences and artwork.
One of the seminal artists of our time, Laurie Anderson's genre-crossing work encompasses performance, film, music, installation, writing, photography, and sculpture.
"Laurie Anderson is a singer-songwriter of crushing poignancy-- a minimalist painter of melancholy moods who addresses universal themes in the vernacular of the commonplace."
- Rolling Stone
Laurie Anderson has toured the United States and internationally numerous times with shows ranging from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. Major works include United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick, a multimedia stage performance based on the novel by Herman Melville.
Anderson has published six books, the most recent of which is “Laurie Anderson” by RoseLee Goldberg (Abrams, 2000), a retrospective of her visual work. Text from Anderson’s solo performances appears in the book Extreme Exposure, edited by Jo Bonney. She has also written the entry for New York for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Laurie Anderson’s visual work has been presented in major museums throughout the United States and Europe. In 2003, The Musée Art Contemporain of Lyon in France produced a touring retrospective of her work, entitled The Record of the Time: Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson. This retrospective encompassed installation, audio, video and art objects and spans Anderson’s career from the 1970's to her most current works. As a visual artist, Anderson is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York.
Recognized worldwide as a groundbreaking leader in the use of technology in the arts, Anderson collaborated with Interval Research Corporation, a research and development laboratory founded by Paul Allen and David Liddle, in the exploration of new creative tools, including the Talking Stick. She created the introduction sequence for the first segment of the PBS special Art 21, a series about Art in the 21st century.
In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA. Other current projects include a commission to create a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film for the World Expo 2005 in Japan and a series of programs for French radio. She was also recently part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Athens. Anderson currently lives in New York City.
Directions & Parking
The Student Union Building is in the central area of the UMass campus. The Art Gallery is on the first floor of the Student Union, located on the South Side the Building, across from Earth Foods and the Cape Cod Lounge. Parking is available in the adjacent Campus Center Parking Garage.