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Things might not get better but they might not get worse. There's something sort of beautiful about that.

Laurel Nakadate

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Laurel Nakadate
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: December 15
Artist
Film Director
Austin
Texas
Beautiful
Better
Might
Something
Things
Worse
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More quotes by Laurel Nakadate

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Well, my intention is to make work about being uncomfortable. About being in a world that isn't always the world you want to be part of. I talk a lot about the free fall, the moment in the scene where gravity takes over, and the beautiful awkwardness when gravity wins. Gravity is hilarious. Gravity always wins.
Laurel Nakadate
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I have very little interest in endlessly telling people about my artistic process. It sounds like throwing yourself against a wall and crying. It's not interesting to most people. It's interesting to yourself. But it's your problem, not anyone else's.
Laurel Nakadate
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Discomfort and awkwardness are places where you feel things. I'm a big advocate for being happy. We can choose to live in a happy bubble. But part of being happy is understanding how sad things can be.
Laurel Nakadate
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[Photography] ties back into this feeling of wanting to watch things fall and the moment before they break. Fireworks are that way for me - this lovely thing that blows up and is gone. It all goes back to this desire to record things before they disappear - the original reason we take pictures, right?
Laurel Nakadate
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In general, I wait to be approached. I want to be the one who's hunted, I want to be the one who people take interest in.
Laurel Nakadate
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People want movies to be one thing or another they want it be fact or fiction.
Laurel Nakadate
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The act of recording requires you to look at and handle and touch things, so yes - art is more than just looking and recording. It's messy and time consuming and people might fall in love and get hurt.
Laurel Nakadate
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Polaroid, you know, goes against everything that photography is now. You can't make multiples. Only one exists. I love that. By the way, while we've been talking I've now seen a total of three people I know walking on 8th street.
Laurel Nakadate
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I think we're put out into the world to forge relationships with people. Those can be as small as buying coffee from someone or as large as a marriage. The important thing is that we try to make connections or have experiences with other humans. Otherwise what's the point of being on this earth?
Laurel Nakadate
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After you die, your body is just there. Isn't it kind of embarrassing that your body is going to be there and you have no say or control over it? Somebody's going to have to deal with it. I've always respected people who kill themselves and find a way to get rid of the body. Very clean. Lost at sea. I can see why they do that. There's nothing left.
Laurel Nakadate
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I think that fact alone levels everything. Slapstick amazes me, the folly of humans today, the Ponzi schemes, giving birth to eight babies at once, it's amazing... And I know, it's horrible to have your money stolen and all that, but those are amazing stories.
Laurel Nakadate
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Although I use myself in my videos, I really see myself as a character. When I look at myself, when I sit and edit, I never think, That's me. I think, This is a character, and how do I edit this to tell a story?
Laurel Nakadate
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I'm more interested in the idea of role-playing in general than the idea of role-playing in art. I like the childlike quality of making pretend or the optimistic idea of pretending something's happening when it's not.
Laurel Nakadate
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A cupcake is like a great pop song. The whole world in less than three minutes. And it's impossible to have a bad cupcake. In New York you walk everywhere. So I'm always looking, always on the eternal search for the perfect cupcake. I take them very seriously. It's like hunting and gathering for me.
Laurel Nakadate
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It's always a problem - you've got to figure out a place to put your body. You've got to wake up in the morning and deal with the fact that you have this body to lug around.
Laurel Nakadate
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Everything is mediated. Everything is influenced by its maker. And happily, right? I'm so happy everyone leaves fingerprints on things whether they like it or not. Fingerprints solve crimes. They're profound. They're your best and worst friend and you were born with them and you can't get away from them without a lot of pain and sandpaper.
Laurel Nakadate
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Heartbreak is when you're just far enough away from what you desire that you can feel it. Change is the Pangaea moment. I feel like I'm at this point in my life where I have created this place, this island in the ocean, and I'm happy there.
Laurel Nakadate
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I present the thing we're going to do as a simple starting point. They all know it's an art piece and that it's all going to be recorded. And I have never had an experience where one of these men tried to take advantage of the situation. If they were guilty of anything it was of being lonely. It was never that they were violent or dangerous.
Laurel Nakadate
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I believe photography is about choosing to live, being brave. Looking is an act of courage. It's terrifying. It's possible to see too much, to witness things that we cannot hold.
Laurel Nakadate
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I think it's a really good idea to be bumping into all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. So you make art with strangers. You give a reading. You move somewhere new and try to build a life. You grapple with humanity.
Laurel Nakadate