My very talented friend, Sougwen, will be donating 100% of the proceeds from the sale of her prints, from 3/11 to 3/31, to Japanese Earthquake relief. The printing company is also donating their share of the proceeds! Purchase here.
Laurel Nakadate on 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears
Mirlesse: How do you feel about crying now? Have you cried since? Is it a total catharsis that you can call on?
Nakadate: Oh my god, totally, I’ve cried all the time! It’s interesting though because now I think of crying in a different way—I used to think of crying as this… massive event. Since I’ve completed the performance of crying every day of the year 2010 it is less of a massive event and now just this fluid thing that occurs. I don’t think of crying anymore as a tsunami. I think of it more as a fact. Its part of living.
Mirlesse: Like breathing or brushing your teeth?
Nakadate: Like breathing or running or brushing your teeth or crying or taking the subway. It just sits in a very different place for me now. As a performer, or a visual artist, or a visual performance artist or whatever I am it was just so satisfying to have the work teach me something.
A little later in the interview Nakadate explains part of the genus of project:
Nakadate: Right, but I think if people are being honest a large number of days each year you could find yourself crying for personal reasons. You know, that was the original reason why I started the project—I was looking on Facebook and on other websites and I was seeing how everyone fakes happiness all of them time. I mean, is it really true that all 3,000 of my Facebook friends are happy every day? ‘Cause according to their pictures they are! I just thought in direct retaliation against the concept that we should fake our happiness everyday to present the right façade perhaps I’ll deliberately turn the other way and take part in sadness each day and see where that gets me.
Sam Mirlesse interviewing Laurel Nakadate in the February Issue of WHITEHOT MAGAGAZINE.
I think the confusion between the overshare and the construction of online personas has gotten people (or at least me) confused about when we are allowed to be upset. Today, I am upset, and I cried. Okay, I AM crying. Life is the real art and that is so much at the heart of what Nakadate creates.
(image from jpgmag)
The art I make is similar to film - my paintings are essentially freeze frames from movies that are playing in my head. I think its pretty clear that film is the pre-eminent art form of our age. If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
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| — | Banksy (and no, I never saw Avatar) |
