Queer New York: Laurie Anderson's Forty Nine Days in the Bardo: The baad lamb Interview

It's no secret I'm a major fan of Laurie Anderson's work. For more than 40 years, this world-famous visual and performance artist has been captivating and thought-provoking in nearly every medium: performance, sculpture, music, painting, spoken word, video projections, photography and pheromones. (OK, I'm not sure about the pheromones, but if she hasn't used them yet, she will!)

I have yet to see Laurie's current multi-media exhibit at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philly, Forty Nine Days in the Bardo, where she very publicly works through her grief over the loss of her beloved dog and constant companion, Lolabelle (the Bardo is the 49 day intermediate state of transition from death to rebirth as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead). I jumped at the chance to speak with her, and ask questions about this new work as well as discuss some of the major themes of her recent (and past) work.

I see the “transitioning” theme of this show - between life and death, death and rebirth, loss and remembrance, underlined in a section of “Animal Stories” from the live lecture: The world as Pre-9/11 and Post 9/11. [note: watch the video above]

“That was just one story, I’m not sure I would be so global about it, but now that you mention it, it is kind of a different world in many ways... I can’t think of any 10 years in my life time that are more different.”

You must be aware of all the people (myself included) who love to quote from your 1981 O Superman and ascribe to you the gift of prophesy? [I'm referring to the entire song, but especially the lyrics Here come the planes. They're American planes. Made in America.]

Photo credit: Carlos Avendano

“I am NOT a prophet. I think the explanation of that is this: it’s more about amnesia because I think people forget that we are still in that war that I was writing about. That was a war about oil in the desert and technology. It was about a failed rescue mission when some helicopters crashed in the desert. It was in fact the same war. The same war. It just gets labeled differently each time it comes up. It’s got the same theme and the same goal. And I think that is what happens in the United States: we forget that this is going on, and I don’t think that many Americans want to face this either.... we don’t want to face the fact that our major industry is war. And that is pretty much what we do, what we make and what we export... It is such a disturbing thing to think about for me that I don’t think about it all the time. That’s my theme - the theme of that song, O Superman, was about the inability of technology to save you, as we incorporate more and more technology into our lives.”

You have often explored themes of death and the mystery beyond death, but it seems to me you are thinking about it even more often in recent works. Would you agree?

“That is the case with the last two things I made. It’s definitely about death.... especially with Delusion... that had themes dedicated to my mother, and also to different ideas about language, because she was a very articulate person...and she gave a speech on her deathbed that was really kind of hair-raising. It was sort of history, and she waited for everyone to gather around her, and it was this great formal speech that stuck her next to a microphone, to the streets, to the world, the environment, and she starts talking to all the animals with it (gathered on the ceiling!)....and I watched this language-thing, these words, rip her apart! And I thought, that's our world in so many ways..... It had other stories in it as well, but that was the main theme, and it seemed to strike a chord with people about how they felt about their own mothers. They said “Why aren’t there more things written about that relationship – to mothers? You'd think there'd be a giant amount of literature and songs and plays about that, but surprisingly, there isn't. So just when you think there is nothing more to write about, there is a lot to write about!”

In that show [Delusion], I don't want to take literally that real life was like the performance, but you portrayed that relationship with your mother as quite turbulent.

“It definitely was. She was a very very judgemental person and it was as I described in the show, a relationship that was really not about love. And of course, as a consequence a lot of guilt about not being able to love your mother, the main one you are supposed to love and be loved by. And I discovered that that is a bit of a taboo. But I’ve talked to a lot of people who said “Wow, I’m so glad you said that. I never had the nerve to say that I didn’t love my mother.”

Well they say you can’t choose your mother.....

Yes, but she didn’t choose me either. The thing about it is, I have a lot of gratitude toward her. She had great curiosity and ability and need to learn things. She taught me that and that's plenty! That's why you have two parents. I had a great dad and I really loved him. I don’t feel like, 'Gee, what a tragedy I didn’t have that relationship'. It’s just the way she was. I’m really grateful to her. She was quite a person.”

Photo credit: Carlos Avendano

Turning the tables to your new exhibition, you certainly seemed to love your dog Lolabelle.

“Aw, she was a sweet, sweet creature!”

I was wondering, was the concept of mourning the death of Lolabelle something you were already working on or was it developed during the residency at FWM?

“Well.... when she died I began to keep a kind of diary, and began to wonder what it would look like if it was a painting. This show was done very very fast – in a couple of months.”

Photo credit: Carlos Avendano

Wow! That's amazing given the huge size of the exhibit. For instance, just one room of the show has 10 charcoal drawing canvases that are 10’ x 14’, many of them dense with swirling activity and movement.

“Well to me it was—I’m not really a painter or a drawer, you know – and for me making those was, well, a few things: it was very much like music. It was very physical. I never knew what I would do, I would just start painting. It very quickly materialized. It was kind of like improvising. It was basically music and also in a really crazy way, painting those images of Lolabelle was sort of like petting her in a weird crazy way or just touching her. It was a really eerie experience, and I enjoyed it very much, I have to say, anything that is very obsessional like that I can relate to.”

When we last talked (after the Delusion show at BAM), you were reading, and actually had with you, How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson. Have you reached a blissful state of idleness?

“Yes, because I have been trying so hard to just do it. It's a kind of a contradiction to say ‘I’m working really hard to have fun’ but it’s working pretty well. I’m really just trying to do the things that really give me pleasure, and I know that sounds kind of shallow but it works for me.”

Laurie Anderson's Forty Nine Days in the Bardo

continues at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia to Nov. 19th.