Anderson, Laurie (1947–)

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Anderson, Laurie (1947–)

American performance artist. Born June 5, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois; MFA in sculpture, Columbia University, 1972.

Innovative performance artist who gained mainstream audience, 1st performed publicly (1973), presenting work at festivals, museums, and concert halls; had British pop hit with recording "O Superman" (1981); followed up debut album Big Science (1982) with Mister Heartbreak (1983), a collaboration with Peter Gabriel; premiered 7-hour multimedia piece United States, I-IV (1983) at Brooklyn Academy of Music; composed musical score for performance artist Spalding Gray's films Swimming to Cambodia (1987) and Monster in a Box (1991); published many books, including The Package: A Mystery (1971), Transportation (1974), Notebook (1977), Stories from the Nerve Bible (1994), and Laurie Anderson (2000); incorporates graphics, sculpture, film, slides, lighting, mime, spoken and printed language in work.

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