Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist,[2][3] musician and filmmaker whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects.[3] Initially trained in violin and sculpting,[4] Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery.[2] She achieved unexpected commercial success when her song "O Superman" reached number two on the UK singles chart in 1981.
For other people, see Laurie Anderson (disambiguation).
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips Anderson
June 5, 1947
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, U.S.
- Musician
- composer
- performance artist
- electronic literature writer
- Violin
- keyboards
- percussion
- vocals
1969–present
Anderson's debut album Big Science was released in 1982 and has since been followed by a number of studio and live albums. She starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.[5] Anderson's creative output has also included theatrical and documentary works, voice acting, art installations, and a CD-ROM. She is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several musical devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows.[6]
Early life and education[edit]
Laura Phillips Anderson was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, on June 5, 1947, the daughter of Mary Louise (née Rowland) and Arthur T. Anderson.[7] She had seven siblings, and on weekends she studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and played with the Chicago Youth Symphony.[8]
She graduated from Glenbard West High School. She attended Mills College in California, and after moving to New York in 1966,[8] graduated in 1969 from Barnard College with a B.A. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, studying art history. In 1972, she obtained an M.F.A. in sculpture from Columbia University.[9]
Her first performance-art piece — a symphony played on automobile horns — was performed in 1969. In 1970, she drew the underground comix Baloney Moccasins, which was published by George DiCaprio. In the early 1970s, she worked as an art instructor, as an art critic for magazines such as Artforum,[10] and illustrated children's books[11]—the first of which was titled The Package, a mystery story in pictures alone.[12]
Personal life[edit]
She moved to New York in 1966 and now lives in Tribeca.[56][8] Anderson met singer-songwriter Lou Reed in 1992, and she was married to him from April 2008 until his death in 2013.[57][58][59][60]
Anderson is a long-time student of Buddhism and meditation.[61] She first learned meditation on a retreat with the Insight Meditation Society in 1977.[61] She has since become a student of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Mingyur Rinpoche.[61]
Formal music videos have been produced for:
In addition, in lieu of making another music video for her Strange Angels album, Anderson taped a series of one- to two-minute "Personal Service Announcements" in which she spoke about issues such as the U.S. national debt and the arts scene. Some of the music used in these productions came from her soundtrack of Swimming to Cambodia. The PSAs were frequently shown between music videos on VH-1 in early 1990.
Legacy[edit]
In 2013, Dale Eisinger of Complex ranked United States as the third greatest work of performance art ever, with the writer arguing that Anderson is "able to ascertain just exactly the climate of life in the United States, without being so punctuated that it causes a standoff. Perhaps the zenith of this configuration was her multimedia performance, 'United States I – IV.' [...] [Anderson displays] her vast, incisive range of talents on the 'United States Live' recordings."[69]