Using a finely tuned emotional tone, Nakadate's work demonstrates an unusual level of humanity, as she foregrounds vulnerability, emotion and sensitivity with a striking level of candour. Issues of identity, social class and mental health are central to her practice. Several recent works have focused on teenagers as cyphers for universal human struggles, and as lynchpins for understanding the highs and lows of popular culture.
The Zabludowicz Collection is delighted to announce 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 – her body and
personal relationships – 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. Using a finely tuned emotional tone, Nakadate’s work demonstrates an unusual level
of humanity, as she foregrounds vulnerability, emotion and sensitivity with a striking level of
candour. Issues of identity, social class and mental health are central to her practice. Several
recent works have focused on teenagers as cyphers for universal human struggles, and as
lynchpins for understanding the highs and lows of popular culture.
The exhibition brings together works made over the last ten years, including Oops! (2000),
a three-channel 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’ iconic 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 sexualized or seductive ways, Nakadate also creates scripted works featuring amateur
actors, frequently teenagers, in which they appear to innocently enter into precarious
situations. The exhibition will feature the impressive 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’. Nakadate has also made two
feature-length films, which will be screened during the exhibition, in which she directs a series
of languid teenage characters though a mundane suburban American dream, to create what
she calls ‘visual fact coupled with a fictional narrative’.
The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive public programme of talks, events and
screenings as well as a limited edition artist’s book designed by Malcolm Southward and
including an essay by acclaimed author Rick Moody. Nakadate will also produce a limited edition
artwork in conjunction with the exhibition, which will be sold at the Zabludowicz Collection and
online at shop.zabludowiczcollection.com.
Laurel Nakadate was born in Austin, Texas in 1975 and currently lives in New York, NY. She
attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and graduated from Yale’s MFA
program in photography in 2001. Originally working as a documentary photographer, she was
selected as one of ‘25 under 25’ in the seminal 2000 book and show of that name. Since then
she has worked primarily in performance, video and photography and in 2009 made her first
feature film Stay the Same Never Change which was selected for Sundance in 2009, and was
premiered in the UK at the Zabludowicz Collection in January 2010. Her second feature The
Wolf Knife (2010) was nominated for the Gotham Independent Film Awards and will be
premiered in the UK as part of this exhibition. Nakadate’s work has been exhibited at MoMA
PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York; the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Reina
Sofia museum in Madrid, Spain. Her work is in the MoMA Collection as well as several other
significant international Collections. Her ten-year survey exhibition Only the Lonely curated by
Klaus Biesenbach is on show at MoMA PS1 until 8 August 2011 and runs concurrently with her
solo exhibition at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York, Laurel Nakadate: 365 Days:
A Catalogue of Tears (until 25 June 2011). She is the recipient of several awards including the
Alice Kimball English Traveling Fellowship, Yale University, 2001; Best Narrative Feature,
Chicago Underground Film Festival, 2010 (for Stay the Same Never Change); Gotham
Independent Film Award Finalist, 2010 (for The Wolf Knife); Independent Spirit Award Finalist,
2011 (for The Wolf Knife).
Press Information: Kristina McLean at Calum Sutton PR
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7183 3577 or Email: kristina@suttonpr.com
Press Preview
26 September 9-11am
Exhibition Preview
26 September 7-9pm
Zabludowicz Collection
176 Prince of Wales Road, London
Chalk Farm / Kentish Town West
Opening hours: Thursday - Sunday 12–6pm or by appointment
Admission Free