Quote

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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Laurel Nakadate
Age: 48
Born: 1975
Born: December 15
Artist
Film Director
Austin
Texas
Born
Solve
Fingerprints
Away
Crime
Maker
Best
Friend
Happily
Everything
Worst
Crimes
Without
Whether
Influenced
Right
Happy
Makers
Things
Pain
Leaves
Sandpaper
Like
Everyone
Profound
Mediated

More quotes by 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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I never want to make videos with people who don't want to make them with me. I don't want to force people to take part. Only people who want to collaborate. And that's important because otherwise, the videos wouldn't work. Them choosing to take part is very important to the videos.
Laurel Nakadate
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The amazing thing is that we live our lives with the hope that things will go right, that things will happen. And all along the way, we're inspired by the unknown and the unnameable. The minute you can fully describe something it's gone.
Laurel Nakadate
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There's such an energy created when the world is turned upside down, and when things are good again it's nice to take note. Then it goes away. Change. Change means friction. Friction happens where things aren't quite right, when everything is separating, when nothing is the same. Later you piece it back together.
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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What I love about photography is that nothing is really as it seems.
Laurel Nakadate
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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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I believe that I am some sort of fiction writer and I'm using myself in my work because I'm the person I'm most convenient to use!
Laurel Nakadate
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Humans like to look. I think that voyeurism and exploitation are often used in the same sentence. But, in my opinion, voyeurism is a beautiful and delightful thing. There is nothing more intimate than really looking at someone.
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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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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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'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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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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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
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A lot of people think that my work is about mocking or making fun of things, but a lot of it is about discomfort and making myself as uncomfortable as the men feel, or putting myself in a situation where I'm revealing my loneliness as much as they're revealing theirs.
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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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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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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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