Aperture and the Photography Program in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design present the first of the Parsons Lecture series in 2011 with Laurel Nakadate. Nakadate will be discussing her recent works which are currently being exhibited in a solo exhibition at PS1 MoMA entitled Only The Lonely. This is Nakadate’s first large-scale museum exhibition and features works made over the last ten years, including her early video works, in which she was invited into the homes of anonymous men to dance, pose, or even play dead in their kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms. The exhibition brings together bodies of work that touch on voyeurism, loneliness, the manipulative power of the camera, and the urge to connect with others, through, within, and apart from technology and the media.

Laurel Nakadate works in video, photography, and feature-length film. Good Morning, Sunshine (2009), a more recent work in which Nakadate enters the bedrooms of young women, wakes them, and instructs each to strip down to their underwear for the camera. Nakadate’s two features,Stay the Same Never Change (2009) and The Wolf Knife (2010) mine similar terrain-the power and fragility of the adolescent female body. The exhibition is also the premiere of Nakadate’s latest photographic series, 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears, currently in progress. These photographs document a year-long performance that began on January 1, 2010, in which the artist documented, and continues to document herself before, during, and after weeping each day. Nakadate received a MFA from Yale University in 2001. Her works have been exhibited at Leslie Artworks + Projects, Chalk Horse Australia, Danziger Projects, New York, and Daniel Silverstein Gallery, New York. She is currently represented by Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects in New York City.

Wednesday, February 9, 6:30 pm