Feature: The Big Picture - Exhibition - Laurel Nakadate at Zabludowicz Collection
Published: 6 October, 2011
THE Zabludowicz Collection is currently home to the first UK solo exhibition of US artist Laurel Nakadate, including an important new body of work commissioned for the exhibition.
Working in film, performance and photography, Nakadate often puts herself at the centre of the nexus of author, artwork and audience.
She creates highly charged scenes that put in play relationships premised on gender, power and sexuality.
Demonstrating an unusual level of humanity, she foregrounds vulnerability, emotion and sensitivity with a striking level of candour.
The exhibition includes Oops! (2000), an installation in which the artist was invited into the homes of men she met through chance encounters asking them to dance with her to Britney Spears’ song; and I Want to Be the One to Walk in the Sun (2006), a video featuring the artist interacting with people she meets in rural and urban locations. Often exposing herself to risk by behaving in overtly sexualised or seductive ways, Nakadate also creates scripted works featuring amateur actors.
The exhibition will feature the photographic series 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears (2010), for which the artist photographed herself crying every day for a year in order to “deliberately take part in sadness each day”. She has also made two feature-length films, which will be screened during the exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks, events and screenings, including a free Pop-Up Cinema showing classic American movies.
• Laurel Nakadate exhibition runs until December 11 at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 176 Prince of Wales Road, NW5 3PT. Open Thursday-Sunday,
12-6pm, extended opening hours from October 11-15, from
11am-8pm, 020 7428 8940, www.zabludowiczcollection.com