There is a difference between being a bad child and being a wild child. Anybody can be wild, but to be bad you need some kind of knowledge.
Generally paintings are about technique, but I don't see myself as a painter. I am more of a storyteller and an image - maker.
When you're about three years old, you start to learn how to be manipulative. I know this from my own experience - I created this expression between sadness and dissatisfaction to get people to make me feel better, to get me presents. I created this face based on movies without even understanding it. I felt attracted to faces and body language. I remember I was always fascinated with why some people are considered beautiful and some are not. Everybody's got two eyes and one nose, but it's the small details. It is why we fall in love or why we want to kill somebody we haven't even spoken to.
For me narcissism is not about money. For me, narcissism is something so romantic and something so human. Everybody is a narcissist. Some people admit it and some people don't. As an artist, it's important to be a narcissist. Look at Picasso, look at Warhol.... As an artist, you can get away with a lot of things that normal people cannot.
For a long time I found myself calling so many things "genius." Sometimes you mean it literally and sometimes it's the opposite, but either way it is so heavy and has so much meaning.
I believe there is some kind of magic that comes just from looking at somebody. In the beginning, I called it "Genius" in a very cynical way. Then I started to look at real geniuses in history and all of them have the same expression, of something very bitter. It's bitter because they have this kind of knowledge that they cannot share. They don't have the time or energy to deal with other people.
To me, paintings are about beauty. They are very feminine, and beauty is something very feminine. For a long time, people would talk with me about identity. I don't have issues with identity, I just follow this kind of feminine beauty because I became a victim of my art, which I think is the best thing for an artist. So many artists use their talent, but with the best artists, their talent uses them.
My paintings used to be so realistic and I found it a little bit boring, especially now that I'm in New York. I wanted to be more free, first in my mind and then, slowly, in my work. Many artists have these jumps in their work and at some point it looks like a supermarket. For me it was important to develop.
A lot of my work is about these moments you find, like when you're driving alone at night by yourself, or you sit at home and smoke a cigarette and all of a sudden there is beautiful music playing - for me it is sad piano music - and think, "I'm so in love and I don't even know with what." You want to freeze this moment.
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Laurie Anderson Artist
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