The FRIENDS OF MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART, a part of the Detroit Institute of Arts, has been sponsoring a series of lectures with the theme of SPACE in relationship to art. On Wednesday, February 16th, they hosted Laurie Anderson at the DIA Film Theater, famed singer/multi-media artist, and had her speak on her time as NASA's first ever (and only, might I add) 'Artist-in-Residence'.
From 2002 to 2004, Laurie Anderson participated in NASA’s first artist-in-residence program, which allowed her access to space telescopes, the Johnson Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Seeing nebulae, Anderson was literally, “Watching stars being born in outer space.” Scale and time, as observed from NASA’s technological perspective, became paramount to her experience of the universe’s vastness. At the DIA Anderson reconsiders her NASA residency in lecture format.
Well shit, this sounds cool! I've always been familiar with her music and artwork, knew of her marriage to Lou Reed, her cool-hippie-chick factor, and general weirdness in relationship to all things 'ART', so I figured I would go hear this lecture to get a better idea of who she is, what makes her tic, and see if the hype is legit, all in an intimate setting.
What did I learn? Well, Laurie Anderson draws in quite the eclectic crowd, a majority of which are older women who have really, REALLY short haircuts. Sitting directly next to these ladies are other ladies who felt deeply compelled to discuss, RATHER LOUDLY, their latest coup in nailing down a ridiculously large grant for the Tyree Guyton Heidelburg site and that "...I shouldn't really be saying this, but he has this AMAZING installation project set up for the abandoned Brewster Projects buildings...think Cristo meets Guyton...hahaha...". A rather strange woman, with long brown ratty hair, stood rocking back and forth in front of the stage, seeming to be in her own world, sketching in a very small sketchbook. From what I could see, for the 15 minutes she did not move, it looked as if she was coloring in a black rectangle in the middle of the page. It was like clown porn...I was transfixed and couldnt stop watching. Then, as if awoken from a trance, she turned around and walked back up the aisle. When I caught a glimpse of her face thru the hair, "HOLY CRAP! YOU'RE A DUDE!" I screamed I my head! I literally jumped in my seat. My point being in all this...it was quite the eclectic crowd.
The lecture itself was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!! I still can't believe what I heard. For all the time she spent at NASA, for all the things she was given access to, and for the $20,000.00 that she was given to be the first ever NASA Artist-in-Residence, Laurie Anderson created... wait for it... wait for it... almost there... here... we... go... a poem. A poem. No paintings. No photographs. No multi-media installations based on Hubble telescope images. Nothing. She created words. And to top it off...this is the best part... she didn't even read it to us. Nothing. Really? Where's the hidden camera's, cuz this has to be some sick and twisted joke. Are you kidding me? WTF? And then, to add insult to injury, the lecture continued. About what, you ask? Gardens. Yep, soak it in ladies and gents. Gardens. She regailed us in abstract terminology and descriptions with hand-drawn images in slide show format of her Garden installation in Japan, or was it China... I don't recall, the detail is so minute and unimportant in relationship to the rest of the debacle of a lecture that I really dont feel bad for not recalling that part. Then, to top it all off, because she was under time constraints from the DIA, she had to wrap everything up in a nice little bow, and offered a Q and A session with the captivated (minus one) audience. That's it, I'm done. I'm officially zoned out and completely uninterested. But, because I was brilliant, I chose to sit in the middle of the row and didn't want to be a DB and walk out. So, I sat there listening to the brave few who felt the need to give oral pleasure at the mic to Laurie prior to their question, to which her responses were random wanderings and ramblings, just barely resembling an answer to the original question.
A waste of a warm Detroit evening, in a beautiful theater, brought upon by the brilliantly false advertising of the FMCA. Luckily, there was no charge for the lecture, just a need to register at their website. Had i paid for tickets, i wuld have been pissed! I should have just gone shooting in the streets of Detroit and got something actually accomplished.
-LAWRENCEcreative