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Laurel Jay Carpenter
- Alfred, NY
- United States
- Blog Posts (4)
- Discussions (1)
- Events (1)
- Groups (8)
- Photos (33)
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Laurel Jay Carpenter's Groups
Laurel Jay Carpenter's Page
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Profile Information
- Occupation
- Performance + Installation Artist • Professor of Art
- Bio
- Laurel Jay Carpenter is a performance and installation artist, investigating longing, devotion and alchemy in her durational live works. She has exhibited extensively in New York at venues including Exit Art/The First World, The Knitting Factory, Performance Space 122, Judson Church House, the ISE, SOHO20 and HP Garcia Galleries, and Brooklyn’s Borough Hall. Laurel has been a fellow and invited artist at the International Performance Art Festival in Cleveland, The Performance Studies International Conference and the MacDowell Colony.
Internationally, Laurel has presented work at the NMAC Foundation in southern Spain; with Wooloo Productions and the Hebbel Theatre in Berlin, Germany; and as part of the 2007 Venice Biennale. Laurel is honored to have been one of only two US participants in the Independent Performance Group (2004-2007), founded and facilitated by Marina Abramović, after studying briefly with her.
Currently, Laurel is Associate Professor of Art at Alfred University in western New York.
- Website
- http://laureljay.com
Artist Statement
In my work I court the impossible; I hold tight to a teetering edge. I am fascinated by what philosopher Drew Leder calls the null point—the place between—neither in nor out of the body’s acuity. I attempt to suspend time and extend the tipping point, the moment right before collapse, dangling, almost falling, almost overflowing. By reconfiguring the elements of setting, object and gesture in both performance and installation, I create familiar scenes unsettlingly skewed, evoking contemplation, peril, devotion or longing.
I find inspiration in my immediate surroundings: the place, the season, the remnants on hand. In fact, I am wooed by mundane, seemingly ordinary things and common, repetitive tasks. I sculpt space and material to create heightened sites for routine but exacting gestures, nudging oversized sculptural objects into ephemerality. The transformation of the physical material during the performance serves as both motive and metaphor for the transformation of my mental and emotional state. I conjure a kind of quiet alchemy by imprinting the space, moment by moment, hour after hour, with simple, ceaseless effort: sifting, licking, kissing, laughing. In my work, in every way, I seek the magic of being richly and intensely present.
Laurel Jay Carpenter's Photos
Laurel Jay Carpenter's Blog
Bergen or Bust!
Posted on October 25, 2012 at 4:53pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
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I will be in residence in Bergen, Norway working with my performance collaborator (Terese Longva of Longva+Carpenter, see image above) for 3 months, March-ish through May-ish. I am still looking for a place to live! If you have connections to friends/colleagues in Bergen, will you connect us?…
LaurelJay.com
Posted on October 8, 2011 at 9:34am 0 Comments 0 Likes
LaurelJay.com is new, up-to-date, and improved!
And even has a fresh blog link!
Read all about my performance art and installation work, some going back nearly to the beginning of my career in the early 1990s.
I still need to add a few pieces…
An Open Letter to Marina Abramović
Posted on March 13, 2011 at 11:55pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
June, 2010
Dear Marina,
May I add my voice to the certain choir of congratulations and the flood of thank yous.
I visited MoMA the final week of the retrospective, wanting to feel the energy of the end. On the last Wednesday, I stood for nine hours on the line, waiting: two hours outside before the museum opened, and the whole day in the atrium. I was 29th in line. I was happy to wait; I wanted to witness. I decided not to leave my spot…
Continue Contemporary Performance TXTS - Laurel Jay Carpenter
Posted on March 4, 2011 at 2:34am 0 Comments 0 Likes
As a performance and installation artist, I investigate longing, devotion and alchemy in durational live works. I am interested in the impossible in-between places: the moment right before collapse, dangling, almost falling, almost overflowing. I attempt to suspend time and extend that tipping point by conjuring a kind of quiet transformation by imprinting the space, moment by moment, hour after hour, with simple, ceaseless effort: sifting, licking, kissing, laughing. In my work, in every…
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We've definitely been circling each other : )
We should meet soon!
Good luck with the Member Spotlight - we hope you win!
Jill