A Conversation with Laurie Anderson and Julian Schnabel

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

Her recording career, launched by “O Superman” in 1981, includes many records released by Warner Records and Nonesuch, among them “Big Science” (1982), the soundtrack to her feature film “Home of the Brave”(1986) “Strange Angels” (1989) “Life on a String” (2001) “Homeland” (2008) the Grammy winning “Landfall” (2018) and the Grammy nominated “Songs from the Bardo” (2019) on Smithsonian Folkways.

Other recordings include numerous works for podcast and radio including the most recent “Party in the Bardo” series for WESU Middletown.  She has performed music and toured worldwide with many of her own groups and bands and composed orchestra works “It’s Cold Outside” (1982) and“ Songs for A.E.” for the American Composers Orchestra (2000), the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and in 2019 for the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra  conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.

Anderson's live shows range from spoken word works to multi- faceted multimedia stage performances such as “United States Parts 1-4” (1982) “Stories from the Nerve Bible” (1992)  “Songs and Stories for Moby Dick” (1999) “Delusion” (2010) and “Language of the Future” (2017). Anderson continues to collaborate with Christian McBride, Brian Eno and Philip Glass as well as improvising with Bill Laswell and John Zorn.

In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 solo performance “The End of the Moon”, the second in a series of three “story” performances along with “Happiness” (2001) and “Dirtday” (2012) all of which toured extensively internationally.

Anderson has published eight books. Her most recent release - “All The Things I Lost In The Flood” (Rizzoli) – is a series of essays about pictures, language and codes. She is currently writing and compiling “The Art of the Straight Line” a series of essays and interviews about tai chi in the work of her late husband Lou Reed who she lived with and collaborated with for twenty-one years.

Anderson’s visual work has been presented in museums around the world. Major audio-visual installations include “The Record of the Time- Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson” (2003), World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan and “Habeas Corpus” (2015) a collaboration with Guantanamo detainee Mohammed el Gharani  at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City for which she was awarded, for the second time,  Yoko Ono’s “Courage Award for the Arts”.

Anderson’s films include numerous music videos and installation works as well as “Carmen” (1992), the high definition “Hidden Inside Mountains” (2005) and Arte-commissioned  “Heart of a Dog” (2015) which was chosen as an official selection of the 2015 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.

Her series of paintings have been exhibited widely.  She has been an artist in residence at many places among them Princeton Atelier (2008 and 2019) and at EMPAC in Troy, New York from (2012-2015) as Distinguished Artist in Residence. She has long term exhibition at Mass MoCA. Her digital and VR collaborations with Hsin-Chien Huang have won awards at both the Venice Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival.

The recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and awards among them Guggenheim Fellowship (1982) and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2007) she continues to experiment with many different forms and contexts for her work.

As an activist Anderson has participated in many groups including Women’s Action Coalition and Occupy Art. As a Buddhist she is an active  She lives and works in New York and Springs Long Island.

Julian Schnabel’s work has been exhibited all over the world.  His paintings, sculptures, and works on paper have been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1982;The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1982; Tate Gallery, London, 1982; Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1987; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 1987; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1987; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1987; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 1987; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1987; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, 1989; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, 1989; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1989; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1989; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1989; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Monterrey, 1994; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 1995; Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, 1996; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main, 2004; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2004; Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma, Helsinki, 2008;  Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, 2009; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2010; Museo Correr, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 2011; The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, 2013; Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, 2014; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2014; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, 2014; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, 2016; Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, 2018; and Hall Art Foundation, Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, 2017, 2022 and 2023.

Schnabel, an award-winning film director, has written and directed seven feature films. In 1995, Schnabel wrote and directed his first feature film, Basquiat, about fellow New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film was released in 1996 and was in the official selection of the Venice Film Festival the same year. Schnabel’s second film, Before Night Falls, based on the life of the late exiled Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Venice Film Festival and Javier Bardem won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor. Javier Bardem was also nominated for Best Actor at the 2001 Academy Awards. In 2007 Schnabel directed his third film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  Schnabel received the award for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival as well as Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards, where the film won Best Foreign Language Film.  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Director. The film was also nominated for seven 2008 César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor for which Mathieu Amalric won for his portrayal of Jean-Dominque Bauby.  In 2007, he also made a film of Lou Reed’s Berlin concert at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.  Miral, won the UNESCO as well as the UNICEF award at the 2010 Venice Film Festival.  Miral was shown at the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations.  At Eternity’s Gate (2018), a film about Vincent Van Gogh starring Willem Dafoe had its world premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Lion Award. Dafoe won the Coppa Volpi at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes and 2019 Academy Awards. Schnabel has recently completed his seventh feature film, In the Hand of Dante, a film adaptation of Nick Tosches’s third novel of the same name, starring Oscar Isaac as well as Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Jason Momoa, Al Pacino, and Martin Scorsese. In the Hand of Dante will be released in the 2024/2025 season.

His work is in numerous museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao; Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Kunstmuseum, Basel; Fondation Musée d’ArtModerne, Luxembourg;  Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and the Hall Art Foundation.

julianschnabel.com

Julian Schnabel. Photo: Louise Kugelberg, 2016