Laura Cottingham
Encyclopedia
Laura Cottingham is an American art critic
, curator
and visual artist. Her most recent book is Fear Eats the Soul on Rainer Werner Fassbinder
published by the British Film Institute
in 2005. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout Europe and in New York City
, her best known videos
being Not For Sale, 1998 and The Anita Pallenberg Story, 2000. She curated "NowHere," for the Louisiana Museum of Art
, Denmark
in 1996 and "Vraiment Feminisme et art," for Le Magasin in Grenoble, France in 1997. She lives in New York City.
, in Park Hills, Kentucky
and of the University of Chicago
. In 1981-82 she was a Helena Rubenstein Fellow in the Whitney Museum of American Art
's Independent Study Program. Her activities have been primarily concentrated in Europe—including Austria
, Germany
, France
, Spain
, England
, Scotland
, the Netherlands
, Denmark
, and Sweden
--where she has published, exhibited and lectured widely. Her work is concerned with reconsidering the meaning of art in light of the countercultural values
of circa 1968. Her influences include Fluxus
, Rock and roll
, punk
(Dee Dee Ramone
kissed her), ballet
, radical feminism
, Gay rights, Black Power
, Zen
and Gestalt
.
Aside from Fear Eats the Soul, Cottingham's other books include Seeing Through the Seventies: Essays on Feminism and Art (Amsterdam, 2000); Lesbians Are So Chic... (London, 1996) and How many 'bad' feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? (New York, 1994), also in French (Lyon, 1999). She is best known for her work recuperating Seventies Feminist Art and has published extensively on many of the artists of that period, as well as on artists of her own generation.
Her Not For Sale: Feminism and Art in the USA during the 1970s, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art
, New York, in 1998. The Anita Pallenberg Story is a satire on the international art scene
that features Cottingham playing Mick Jagger
; other art world
personalities likewise appear in this Warhol
-like drama, including collector Peter Norton
("Norton Utilities") who plays a pizza delivery boy. "Pallenberg" is the subject of a website: "LOVE, SEX, FAME and the LIFE OF THE IMAGE: On the making of the Anita Pallenberg Story" at www.haussite.net, the Kuenstlerhaus Stuttgart's website.
In 2006 she co-curated Sweden's annual national exhibition for the Lilevalchs Konsthalle, Stockholm
.
visual arts programs at Rutgers University
, the School of Visual Arts
, Pratt Institute
and Columbia University
, New York as well as at the Danish Royal Academy and The Cooper Union in New York City
.
In 2000 Cottingham performed as a dancer with the Stanley Love Performance Group in New York.
song, "Hot Topic."
She often appeared as a contestant on "Name That Painting," a Manhattan cable television show.
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
, curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
and visual artist. Her most recent book is Fear Eats the Soul on Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
published by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
in 2005. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout Europe and in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, her best known videos
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
being Not For Sale, 1998 and The Anita Pallenberg Story, 2000. She curated "NowHere," for the Louisiana Museum of Art
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located directly on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark with an extensive permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, dating from World War II and up...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
in 1996 and "Vraiment Feminisme et art," for Le Magasin in Grenoble, France in 1997. She lives in New York City.
Works
Laura Cottingham is a graduate of Notre Dame AcademyNotre Dame Academy (Park Hills, Kentucky)
Notre Dame Academy is a Roman Catholic high school for girls in Northern Kentucky.-Facts:Mission Statement: Notre Dame Academy, a Catholic high school dedicated to Mary, exists to educate young women to make a difference in the world....
, in Park Hills, Kentucky
Park Hills, Kentucky
Park Hills is a city in Kenton County, Kentucky, United States. A small Upper-Middle class bedroom community located in the Cincinnati Metro Area. Where most home vaules exceed $200,000 dollars. Desirable for its location, only 3 miles from the Cincinnati's Downtown, and 6 miles to the...
and of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. In 1981-82 she was a Helena Rubenstein Fellow in the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
's Independent Study Program. Her activities have been primarily concentrated in Europe—including Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
--where she has published, exhibited and lectured widely. Her work is concerned with reconsidering the meaning of art in light of the countercultural values
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
of circa 1968. Her influences include Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
, Rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
(Dee Dee Ramone
Dee Dee Ramone
Dee Dee Ramone was an American songwriter and musician, best known as founding member, bassist and main songwriter of the punk rock band the Ramones....
kissed her), ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, radical feminism
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
, Gay rights, Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
, Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
and Gestalt
Gestalt
Die Gestalt is a German word for form or shape. It is used in English to refer to a concept of 'wholeness'. Gestalt may also refer to:* Gestalt psychology , a theory of mind and brain, describing the Gestalt effect....
.
Aside from Fear Eats the Soul, Cottingham's other books include Seeing Through the Seventies: Essays on Feminism and Art (Amsterdam, 2000); Lesbians Are So Chic... (London, 1996) and How many 'bad' feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? (New York, 1994), also in French (Lyon, 1999). She is best known for her work recuperating Seventies Feminist Art and has published extensively on many of the artists of that period, as well as on artists of her own generation.
Her Not For Sale: Feminism and Art in the USA during the 1970s, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York, in 1998. The Anita Pallenberg Story is a satire on the international art scene
Art world
The art world is composed of all the people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art. Howard S. Becker describes it as "the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things,...
that features Cottingham playing Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
; other art world
Art world
The art world is composed of all the people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art. Howard S. Becker describes it as "the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things,...
personalities likewise appear in this Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
-like drama, including collector Peter Norton
Peter Norton
Peter Norton is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name. Norton sold his PC-Software business to Symantec Corporation in 1990....
("Norton Utilities") who plays a pizza delivery boy. "Pallenberg" is the subject of a website: "LOVE, SEX, FAME and the LIFE OF THE IMAGE: On the making of the Anita Pallenberg Story" at www.haussite.net, the Kuenstlerhaus Stuttgart's website.
In 2006 she co-curated Sweden's annual national exhibition for the Lilevalchs Konsthalle, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
.
Teaching and other work
She has taught at the graduateGraduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
visual arts programs at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, New York as well as at the Danish Royal Academy and The Cooper Union in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
In 2000 Cottingham performed as a dancer with the Stanley Love Performance Group in New York.
Cottingham in pop culture
Her name is featured in the Le TigreLe Tigre
Le Tigre is an American electroclash band, formed by Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman in 1998. It also featured Sadie Benning from 1998 until 2001, and JD Samson for the rest of the group's run...
song, "Hot Topic."
She often appeared as a contestant on "Name That Painting," a Manhattan cable television show.
Videography
- NOT FOR SALE: Feminism and Art in the USA during the 1970s, 1998, 90 minutes. Premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1998; subsequently exhibited in Los Angeles, Vienna, London, Paris, Munich, Berlin, San Antonio, San Sebastian (S), Utrecht (NL), Dublin, Ft. Worth (TX), Cambridge (UK), etc.
- The Anita Pallenberg Story, 2000, 77 minutes. Featuring Laura Cottingham as Mick JaggerMick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
(and Brian JonesBrian JonesLewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
) along with a star studded cast of international fine art flunkies including art dealers Colin de Land and Gavin Brown; collector and software genius Peter NortonPeter NortonPeter Norton is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name. Norton sold his PC-Software business to Symantec Corporation in 1990....
("Norton Utilities"); gallery artists from Europe and the USA including, in the title role, Cosima von Bonin.
- Various Shorts, since 1992, including special features on Manhattan Cable and additional gallery and museum works.
External links
- biography at andreykoymasky.com