Carolyn Lazard

Carolyn Lieba Francois Lazard (born 1987) is an American artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lazard uses the experience of chronic illness to examine concepts of intimacy and the labor of living involved with chronic illnesses.^[3] Lazard expresses their ideas through a variety of mediums including performance, filmmaking, sculpture, writing, photography, sound; as well as environments and installations.^[3] Lazard is a 2019 Pew Foundation Fellow and one of the first recipients of The Ford Foundation's 2020 Disability Futures Fellows Awards.^[4][5] In 2023, Lazard was selected as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, colloquially known as the "genius grant."^[6][7]

Carolyn Lazard
Born	Carolyn Lieba Francois Lazard 1987 (age 36–37) Upland, California^[1]
Education	Bard College, University of Pennsylvania^[2]

Early life and education

Carolyn Lieba Francois Lazard was born in 1987 in Upland, California.^[1]

Lazard graduated with a B.A. degree in 2010 from Bard College.^[8] They earned their MFA degree in 2019 from the University of Pennsylvania.^[9]

Art career

Lazard's work has been exhibited internationally including at the Kunsthal Aaruhs, Denmark; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and The Camden Art Centre, London.^[10] Nationally, they have exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; New Museum, New York; and had screenings at the Anthology Film Archives, New York.^[11] Lazard was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, curated by Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta. Lazard was a participant alongside 75 other artists. Lazard's published works include a 2019 work commissioned by Recess titled Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and a Practice^[12] and The World is Unknown,^[13] published by Triple Canopy as a part of their Immaterial Literature project area.

In 2019, Lazard co-organized the ''I Wanna Be With You Everywhere'' festival celebrating disability arts in New York City.^[14]

One of Lazard's works, Support System (For Park, Tina, and Bob), 2016, was featured on the cover of Art Papers' winter 2018/2019 edition. The work documents a 12-hour performance completed by the artist where they spent the day in bed.^[15] For the 2017 New Museum exhibition "Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon" Lazard installed A Conspiracy (2017), 12 white-noise machines (the sort used in therapists' offices) installed in one of the elevators.^[16][17]

Their installation from the 2019 Whitney Biennial is titled “Extended Stay”. For this installation, Lazard attached a TV on a hospital mount that extended from the wall. The TV was connected to a cable set to change channels every 30 seconds. The goal of this work was to connect regular museum goers to people with chronic illness and create a shared experience between the two. There is also a connection to the pandemic. The installation brings to light a sense of boredom that people with chronic illness have experienced their entire life that many other only began to experience during the pandemic.

Canaries collective

Alongside their studio practice they are a co-founder of Canaries, with Jesse Cohen and Bonnie Swencionis. Canaries is a network of cis women, trans people, and non-binary people living and working with autoimmune conditions and other chronic illnesses to create work. The members are artists, painters, actors, and writers who all experience bodily phenomena outside the frame of biomedical discourse. The group, originally based in New York City, has taken the form of a listserve, an art collective, and a support group with regular meetings.^[18] As a collective they have exhibited at Recess, New York;^[19] Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York;^[20] and Franklin Street Works, Connecticut.^[21]

Artistic practice

In March 2017, Lazard co-signed an open letter written by Hannah Black demanding the Whitney Biennial remove the Open Casket painting by Dana Schutz.^[22] In 2021, the Pew Center for Arts asked Lazard to cite a queer work that shaped their practice, Lazard named Artist Panteha Abareshi's video work, For Medical Use Only (2019).^[23]

Exhibitions

• 2016 – Anthology Film Archives, New York City^[24]
• 2017 – Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York City^[17]
• 2018 – Crip Time, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL^[25]
• 2018 – Post Institutional Stress Disorder 2, Kunsthal Aarhus, Germany^[26]
• 2018 – A Recipe for Disaster, Camden Art Centre, London, UK^[27]
• 2018 – the Kitchen, New York City^[28]
• 2018 – epigenetic, Shoot the Lobster, New York City^[29]
• 2018 – Essex Street Gallery, New York City^[30]
• 2019 – Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN^[31]
• 2020 – SYNC, Essex Street Gallery, New York City^[32]
• 2022 – Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN^[33]

References

1. "Whitney Museum Announces 2019 Biennial Participants, But One Artist Withdraws". Hyperallergic. February 26, 2019.
2. "Project grants and faculty awards from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage". Penn Today. June 19, 2018.
3. Roach, Imani (October 17, 2017). "Carolyn Lazard on what happens in private". Artblog.
4. "Carolyn Lazard". The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. October 2, 2019. from the original on November 3, 2019. Retrieved November 3, 2019.
5. "Ford, Mellon Foundations Initiate Disability Futures Fellows, Awarding $50,000 to 20 Artists". www.artforum.com. October 14, 2020. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
6. Kuo, Christopher (October 4, 2023). "When the Phone Rings and the Voice Says: You've Won a MacArthur Award". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 4, 2023.
7. "MacArthur Fellows - MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Retrieved October 4, 2023.
8. Sutphin, Eric (November 2017). "Carolyn Lazard". Art in America. 105: 27 – via Academic Search Premier.
9. "Graduate Fine Arts | Weitzman School". design.upenn.edu. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
10. "Essex Street". essexstreet.biz. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
11. "Flaherty NYC Fall 2016". Flaherty. May 3, 2016. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
12. "Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and a Practice". promiseandpractice.art. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
13. "Triple Canopy". Triple Canopy. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
14. "I Wanna Be With You Everywhere Festival". COOL HUNTING. May 2, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2019.
15. "Disability and the Politics of Visibility – Art Papers". artpapers.org. April 4, 2019. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
16. DUBLON, AMALLE (Spring 2018). "Girl Talk and Hold Music: On the Sculptural Poetics of Chat". TDR: The Drama Review. 62: 2–3. doi:10.1162/DRAM_a_00714. S2CID 57561237 – via International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text.
17. "Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon". newmuseum.org. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
18. "We Are Canaries about". Retrieved May 10, 2019.
19. "CANARIES: REFUGE IN THE MEANS". September 2016. from the original on April 21, 2017.
20. "Sick Time, Sleepy Time, Crip Time". EFA Project Space. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
21. "Initial Conditions: Artists Make Spaces". Franklin Street Works. June 10, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
22. Black, Hannah (March 21, 2017). "Artists and Critics Demand Whitney Biennial Remove Painting in Open Letter". Artforum.
23. "Pride 2021: Seven Artists on the Queer Works that Shaped Their Practices". The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. June 16, 2021. from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
24. "Flaherty NYC Fall 2016". The Flaherty. May 3, 2016. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
25. Grrr.nl (March 24, 2018). "Karen Archey". stedelijk.nl. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
26. ""Post Institutional Stress Disorder" at Kunsthal Aarhus (Contemporary Art Daily)". contemporaryartdaily.com. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
27. "Screening: Carolyn Lazard – What's On". Camden Arts Centre. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
28. "The Kitchen: Julius Eastman: That Which Is Fundamental". thekitchen.org. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
29. "STL NY". Shoot The Lobster. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
30. Artery (April 6, 2018). "Five Sculptures at Essex Street Gallery – ArteryNYC". Retrieved March 1, 2019.
31. "The Body Electric". Retrieved March 6, 2019.
32. "Carolyn Lazard at Maxwell Graham / Essex Street, New York". Contemporary Art Daily. Retrieved January 15, 2022.
33. "Walker Art Center Presents Carolyn Lazard, Newly Conceived Body of Work in Artist's First US Solo Museum Presentation". walkerart.org. Retrieved January 15, 2022.

External links

• Carolyn Lazard – Contemporary Art Daily
• Artist's Website
• Canaries