Since her breakthrough in the mid-1970s, with performance and video works, Laurie Anderson (b. 1947) has risen to prominence also as a writer, composer, and filmmaker. Listening, language and storytelling are essential elements in her interdisciplinary practice, which spans from philosophical and personal contemplations to activist interventions on burning political issues.
Anderson achieved her international breakthrough as a pioneer of electronic music, and today she works at the cutting edge of new arts technologies, like virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) – but is just as likely to employ timeless expressions like voice, painting, or charcoal drawings.
The different parts of Laurie Anderson’s multifaceted production form a tapestry of storytelling that weaves together observations around the human condition, the dreams of nations, the transient now, as well as dystopian visions of the future. – Lena Essling, curator
LOOKING INTO A MIRROR SIDEWAYS
“Looking into a Mirror Sideways” is Laurie Anderson’s largest solo show to date in Europe. It presents a narrative of time, place and existence.
Here, a representative selection of the artist’s works from the 1970s up to the present day is complemented with brand new, site-specific productions: conceptual art, performance, innovative musical instruments, compositions, stage shows, as well as activist art and political art. The exhibition serves as a forum for both physical materials and techniques – painting, sculpture, analogue photography, sound tapes and film strips – and new digital worlds.
In several works Anderson explores issues of subject and of identity, the roles we take and are given, for example, via the artist’s Swedish-born paternal grandfather, Axel Efraim Anderson (1881–1963).
