Laurie Anderson is a national (and international) treasure and living legend. She is responsible for some of the most innovative music and musical inventions in the last one hundred years. I have seen her live many times over the last many decades (I saw her perform her "United States I-IV" in the 80s!) and whenever she is performing live in an area near me, I make an effort to attend. And I am always blown away by her storytelling, her presentation, her uniqueness, her musicality, and her astonishing ability to pinpoint aspects of culture and life from a new perspective, cutting to the heart of things in a devastating way (in the video below, she introduces herself as being from the former United States of America...).
So I am extremely grateful that we get to virtually attend this recent concert of hers. Filmed at the Chapelle Sainte-Jeanne-D'arc in Paris for a private concert as part of the Arte series, she titled this show "Why I Love The Stars." She assembled a marvelous group of musicians who are clearly skilled at improv. This is an hour and ten minutes of magic. Please enjoy.
"You know the reason I really love the stars?
It's because
we cannot
hurt them.
We can't burn them
or flood them
or make them overflow.
We can't blow them up
or turn them out.
But we are reaching for them.
We are
reaching
for them."
https://laurieanderson.com/
Laurie and Lou's Three Rules For Surviving Our Current Times (When There Is No Time To Think)
Rule #1: Don't be afraid of anyone. Can you imagine what your life would be like if you weren't afraid of anyone?
Rule #2: Get a really good bullsh*t detector...and learn how to use it.
Rule #3: Be really...tender.
Showing posts with label performance artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance artist. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Thursday, September 30, 2021
"Laurie Anderson: The Weather" at The Hirshhorn Musuem
On view at The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. until July 31, 2022 is "Laurie Anderson: The Weather." Regular readers may recall I am a huge Laurie Anderson fan. I have adored this extraordinary multi-media artist, performer/storyteller, and musician for many years (previously here). I was lucky enough to see her groundbreaking, mind-boggling musical and theatrical performance art piece "United States I - IV" when she toured it in 1983, and have seen pretty much every tour and major piece since then.
The press release from The Hirshhorn reads:
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present the largest-ever U.S. exhibition of artwork by groundbreaking multimedia artist, performer, musician and writer Laurie Anderson from Sept. 24–July 31, 2022. “Laurie Anderson: The Weather” will debut more than 10 new artworks, interspersed with select key works from throughout her career. Guiding visitors through an immersive audiovisual experience in the museum’s second-floor galleries, this dynamic exhibition will showcase the artist’s boundless creative process, featuring her work in video, performance, installation, painting and other media.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of live performances by Anderson from January 2022 to July 2022. “The Weather” is organized by the museum’s Robert and Arlene Kogod Secretarial Scholar, associate curator of media and performance art, Marina Isgro.
For more than four decades, Anderson has investigated issues such as American identity and the effects of technology on human relationships, often inventing new ways of interacting with technology. The Hirshhorn’s exhibition uses the museum’s prominent location on the National Mall to encourage viewers to reconsider the sociopolitical landscape. “The Weather” will include landmark artworks such as “Habeas Corpus” (2015), a video sculpture that examines via multimedia storytelling the experience of Mohammed el Gharani, who was detained at Guantánamo Bay throughout his adolescence.
“Anderson pushes the limits of contemporary art, from instrument-making to pioneering new and creative applications for emerging technologies,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “We are honored to present this monumental exhibition, which provides a platform for the artist’s newest innovations, situated within decades of artistic output that have defied categorization.”
Drawing on the Hirshhorn’s distinctive cylindrical architecture, the exhibition will be laid out as an ongoing narrative. Guiding visitors on an intimate and personal journey through her work, Anderson will interject at points throughout the exhibition space; portions of the gallery walls will be covered with writing and images that the artist has directly hand-painted.
“The Weather” will debut more than 10 new works by Anderson that highlight her unique blend of the personal, the poetic and the political. These include “Salute” (2021), a new installation featuring robotic flagpoles referencing Anderson’s song “O Superman” (1981), which broadened her following from the downtown New York art world to the MTV generation. Other new installations include the dystopic “The Knife Sharpeners” (2021) and the immersive “Four Talks” (2021), composed of sculptures and texts that investigate the relationship of language to objects. Another gallery will showcase a group of new, monumental paintings on the scale of her large performance works, some of which will appear in her new opera, Ark.
Demonstrating the range of Anderson’s multimedia practice, “The Weather” will feature video excerpts from the virtual-reality pieces “Chalkroom (2017) and “To the Moon” (2018). Earlier work will include excerpts from “Songs for Lines/Songs for Waves” (1977), the interactive “Handphone Table” (1978) and the narrative video installation “Sidewalk” (2012), a film projected onto the gallery floor with a story from the artist’s childhood.
Other featured photographic works include documented performances of “The Institutional Dream Series” (1972–73) and “Object/Objection/Objectivity (Fully Automated Nikon)” (1973). Several violins and other musical instruments that Anderson designed and altered will be shown alongside photographs from her key performances from 1971 to present.
https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/laurie-anderson-the-weather/
https://laurieanderson.com/
The press release from The Hirshhorn reads:
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present the largest-ever U.S. exhibition of artwork by groundbreaking multimedia artist, performer, musician and writer Laurie Anderson from Sept. 24–July 31, 2022. “Laurie Anderson: The Weather” will debut more than 10 new artworks, interspersed with select key works from throughout her career. Guiding visitors through an immersive audiovisual experience in the museum’s second-floor galleries, this dynamic exhibition will showcase the artist’s boundless creative process, featuring her work in video, performance, installation, painting and other media.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of live performances by Anderson from January 2022 to July 2022. “The Weather” is organized by the museum’s Robert and Arlene Kogod Secretarial Scholar, associate curator of media and performance art, Marina Isgro.
For more than four decades, Anderson has investigated issues such as American identity and the effects of technology on human relationships, often inventing new ways of interacting with technology. The Hirshhorn’s exhibition uses the museum’s prominent location on the National Mall to encourage viewers to reconsider the sociopolitical landscape. “The Weather” will include landmark artworks such as “Habeas Corpus” (2015), a video sculpture that examines via multimedia storytelling the experience of Mohammed el Gharani, who was detained at Guantánamo Bay throughout his adolescence.
“Anderson pushes the limits of contemporary art, from instrument-making to pioneering new and creative applications for emerging technologies,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “We are honored to present this monumental exhibition, which provides a platform for the artist’s newest innovations, situated within decades of artistic output that have defied categorization.”
Drawing on the Hirshhorn’s distinctive cylindrical architecture, the exhibition will be laid out as an ongoing narrative. Guiding visitors on an intimate and personal journey through her work, Anderson will interject at points throughout the exhibition space; portions of the gallery walls will be covered with writing and images that the artist has directly hand-painted.
“The Weather” will debut more than 10 new works by Anderson that highlight her unique blend of the personal, the poetic and the political. These include “Salute” (2021), a new installation featuring robotic flagpoles referencing Anderson’s song “O Superman” (1981), which broadened her following from the downtown New York art world to the MTV generation. Other new installations include the dystopic “The Knife Sharpeners” (2021) and the immersive “Four Talks” (2021), composed of sculptures and texts that investigate the relationship of language to objects. Another gallery will showcase a group of new, monumental paintings on the scale of her large performance works, some of which will appear in her new opera, Ark.
Demonstrating the range of Anderson’s multimedia practice, “The Weather” will feature video excerpts from the virtual-reality pieces “Chalkroom (2017) and “To the Moon” (2018). Earlier work will include excerpts from “Songs for Lines/Songs for Waves” (1977), the interactive “Handphone Table” (1978) and the narrative video installation “Sidewalk” (2012), a film projected onto the gallery floor with a story from the artist’s childhood.
Other featured photographic works include documented performances of “The Institutional Dream Series” (1972–73) and “Object/Objection/Objectivity (Fully Automated Nikon)” (1973). Several violins and other musical instruments that Anderson designed and altered will be shown alongside photographs from her key performances from 1971 to present.
https://laurieanderson.com/
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
"Welcoming The Flowers" by John Giorno
After poet, performance artist, and activist John Giorno's recent passing last autumn, let's look at a lovely poem of his that reflects his Buddhist practice: "Welcoming The Flowers."
Welcoming The Flowers
by John Giorno
I am standing on the corner of Stanton and Chrystie,
waiting for the traffic light to change.
A man is sitting on the steps of a building
holding his young son on his lap.
He is eating fried chicken
from Chico's take-out on Houston.
He chews on the wings
and feeds bits of the breast to his son.
The man finishes eating
and puts the leftover chicken and bones,
french fries and soda can in a paper bag
and leaves it on the sidewalk.
A brown dog from a neighboring building,
snoops around
gets his nose in the bag,
chews on the bones
and makes a mess.
The man hits the dog with a newspaper,
and it yelps and runs away.
A black cat sitting in a window,
watches wide-eyed,
staring down at the dog,
chicken bones and gristle.
I see their past and present lives.
The man eats the chicken
and the chicken
was his mother,
who had died of cancer two years ago;
the dog chewing on the bones
was his father,
who had died of a heart attack five years ago;
and the cat in the window
was his grandmother;
and his young son, whom he holds so tenderly,
was the man who killed him in his previous life.
His wife comes home with groceries
and takes the boy into the building.
She had been his lover in many past lives,
and was his mother for the first time in this one.
The world just makes me laugh.
Fill what is empty,
empty what is full,
light
as body,
light
as breath.
Welcoming the flowers:
daffodils
baptized in butter,
lilacs lasciviously licking the air,
necklaces of wisteria
bowing to magnolia mamas,
the cherry blossoms are razor blades,
the snow dahlias are sharp as cat piss,
the lilies of the valley are
lilies of fur,
lilies of feather,
lilies of fin,
lilies of skin,
the almost Miss America rose,
the orchids are fat licking tongues,
and they all smell so good
and I am sucked into their meaty earthy goodness.
You make
my heart
feel warm,
I lay my head on your chest
and feel free,
filling
what is empty,
emptying
what is full,
filling what is
empty, emptying
what is full,
filling what is empty, emptying what is full,
filling what is empty, emptying what is full,
the gods
we know
we are,
the gods
we knew
we were.
I smell you
with my eyes,
see you
with my ears,
feel you
with my mouth,
taste you
with my nose,
hear you
with my tongue,
I want you to sit
in my heart,
and smile.
Words come from sound,
sound comes from wisdom,
wisdom comes from emptiness,
deep relaxation
of great perfection.
Welcoming the flowers:
armfuls of honey suckle
and columbine,
red-tipped knives of Indian paint brush,
the fields of daisies are the people
who betrayed me
and the lupine were self-serving and unkind,
the voluminous and voluptuous bougainvillea
are licking fire loving what it cannot burn,
the big bunch of one thousand red roses
are all the people I made love to,
hit my nose with stem of a rose,
the poppies have pockets packed with narcotic treats,
the chrysanthemums are a garland of skulls.
I go to death
willingly,
with the same comfort and bliss
as when I lay my head
on my lover's chest.
Welcoming the flowers:
the third bouquet is a crown of blue bells,
a carillon of foxglove,
a sunflower snuggles its head on my lap
and gazes up at the sky,
may all the tiny black insects
crawling on the peony petals
be my sons and daughters in future lives,
great balls of light
radiating white, red, blue
concentric dazzle,
yellow, green
great exaltation,
the world just makes me laugh.
May sound and light
not rise up and appear as enemies,
may I know all sound as my own sound,
may I know all light as my own light,
may I spontaneously know all phenomena as myself,
may I realize original nature,
not fabricated by mind,
empty
naked awareness.
And for hoots, here is a photo of--get this--Keith Haring, William S. Burroughs, and John Giorno at a shooting range! Seriously.
Welcoming The Flowers
by John Giorno
I am standing on the corner of Stanton and Chrystie,
waiting for the traffic light to change.
A man is sitting on the steps of a building
holding his young son on his lap.
He is eating fried chicken
from Chico's take-out on Houston.
He chews on the wings
and feeds bits of the breast to his son.
The man finishes eating
and puts the leftover chicken and bones,
french fries and soda can in a paper bag
and leaves it on the sidewalk.
A brown dog from a neighboring building,
snoops around
gets his nose in the bag,
chews on the bones
and makes a mess.
The man hits the dog with a newspaper,
and it yelps and runs away.
A black cat sitting in a window,
watches wide-eyed,
staring down at the dog,
chicken bones and gristle.
I see their past and present lives.
The man eats the chicken
and the chicken
was his mother,
who had died of cancer two years ago;
the dog chewing on the bones
was his father,
who had died of a heart attack five years ago;
and the cat in the window
was his grandmother;
and his young son, whom he holds so tenderly,
was the man who killed him in his previous life.
His wife comes home with groceries
and takes the boy into the building.
She had been his lover in many past lives,
and was his mother for the first time in this one.
The world just makes me laugh.
Fill what is empty,
empty what is full,
light
as body,
light
as breath.
Welcoming the flowers:
daffodils
baptized in butter,
lilacs lasciviously licking the air,
necklaces of wisteria
bowing to magnolia mamas,
the cherry blossoms are razor blades,
the snow dahlias are sharp as cat piss,
the lilies of the valley are
lilies of fur,
lilies of feather,
lilies of fin,
lilies of skin,
the almost Miss America rose,
the orchids are fat licking tongues,
and they all smell so good
and I am sucked into their meaty earthy goodness.
You make
my heart
feel warm,
I lay my head on your chest
and feel free,
filling
what is empty,
emptying
what is full,
filling what is
empty, emptying
what is full,
filling what is empty, emptying what is full,
filling what is empty, emptying what is full,
the gods
we know
we are,
the gods
we knew
we were.
I smell you
with my eyes,
see you
with my ears,
feel you
with my mouth,
taste you
with my nose,
hear you
with my tongue,
I want you to sit
in my heart,
and smile.
Words come from sound,
sound comes from wisdom,
wisdom comes from emptiness,
deep relaxation
of great perfection.
Welcoming the flowers:
armfuls of honey suckle
and columbine,
red-tipped knives of Indian paint brush,
the fields of daisies are the people
who betrayed me
and the lupine were self-serving and unkind,
the voluminous and voluptuous bougainvillea
are licking fire loving what it cannot burn,
the big bunch of one thousand red roses
are all the people I made love to,
hit my nose with stem of a rose,
the poppies have pockets packed with narcotic treats,
the chrysanthemums are a garland of skulls.
I go to death
willingly,
with the same comfort and bliss
as when I lay my head
on my lover's chest.
Welcoming the flowers:
the third bouquet is a crown of blue bells,
a carillon of foxglove,
a sunflower snuggles its head on my lap
and gazes up at the sky,
may all the tiny black insects
crawling on the peony petals
be my sons and daughters in future lives,
great balls of light
radiating white, red, blue
concentric dazzle,
yellow, green
great exaltation,
the world just makes me laugh.
May sound and light
not rise up and appear as enemies,
may I know all sound as my own sound,
may I know all light as my own light,
may I spontaneously know all phenomena as myself,
may I realize original nature,
not fabricated by mind,
empty
naked awareness.
And for hoots, here is a photo of--get this--Keith Haring, William S. Burroughs, and John Giorno at a shooting range! Seriously.
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