About this Artist

LAURIE ANDERSON is one of America’s most renowned - and daring- creative pioneers. She is best known for her multimedia presentations and innovative use of technology.  As writer, director, visual artist and vocalist she has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music.

Her recording career, launched by “O Superman” in 1981, includes the soundtrack to her feature film “Home of the Brave” and “Life on a String” (2001). Anderson's live shows range from simple spoken word to elaborate multi-media stage performances such as “Songs and Stories for Moby Dick” (1999). Anderson has published seven books and her visual work has been presented in major museums around the world. 

In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance “The End of the Moon”.  Recent projects include a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film, “Hidden Inside Mountains”, created for World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. In 2007 she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. In 2008 she completed a two-year worldwide tour of her performance piece, “Homeland”, which was released as an album on Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Anderson’s solo performance “Delusion” debuted at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February 2010 and will continue to tour internationally into 2011.  In 2010 a retrospective of her visual and installation work opened in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later traveled to Rio de Janeiro.  

In 2011 her exhibition of all new work titled “Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo” opened at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia.   That same year she was awarded with the Pratt Institute’s Honorary Legends Award.   Her exhibition “Boat” curated by Vito Schnabel opened in May of 2012.  She has recently finished residencies at both CAP in UCLA in Los Angeles and EMPAC in Troy, New York.  Her film “Heart of a Dog” was chosen as an official selection of the 2015 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. In the same year, her exhibition “Habeas Corpus” opened at the Park Avenue Armory to wide critical acclaim and in 2016 she was the recipient of Yoko Ono’s Courage Award for the Arts for that project. Anderson lives in New York City.

In 2017 Mass MoCA’s Building 6 opened, beginning a fifteen year rotating exhibition of work from Anderson’s  archive as well as a platform to present new works.  Included in 2017’s opening, Anderson and Chien-Chen Huang premiered their first collaborative VR works “Chalkroom” and  "Aloft”. “Chalkroom” has been featured in film festivals all over the world including The Venice Film Festival where it won the award for “Best VR Film” under its Italian title “La Camera Insabbiata”.  Anderson continues to tour her evolving performance “Language of the Future” and has collaborated with Christian McBride and Philip Glass on several projects in 2017.  Anderson continues to work with the activist group “The Federation” which she co-founded in 2017.

In February of 2018  “Landfall”, a collaboration between Anderson and Kronos Quartet was released through Nonesuch Records.  Commissioned by Kronos Quartet in 2013, the work  was inspired by  the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy.  Also in February Rizzoli released “All The Things I Lost In The Flood” a book of images and a series of essays about pictures, language,and codes.