The Laughing Record by Nicola Green: Nicola Green

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BP Portrait Award 2008

Nicola Green's portrait of Mark Pritchard has been selected for the 2008 BP Portrait Award showing from 12 June to 14 September 2008 in the Wolfson Gallery at the National Gallery in London.

The East Wing Collection at The Courtauld

The portrait of the Late Joshua Compston is currently on view in the East Wing Collection at the Courtaul Institute of Art. Joshua Compston was at the Courtauld himself and set up the East Wing Collection, the first contemporary art exhibit at the Courtauld. The portrait is a tribute to him and his work.

There are on-going events and performances at the East Wing Collection. Details can be found on www.eastwing.co.uk .

Blind Art Exhibition - New York October 2006

Permanent Collection - Touring Exhibition

Nicola Green's No 1 Hit - The Laughing Record is part of The Blind Art Exhibition touring the U.S in 2006

Podcasts

* Click here to listen to Martha Kearney interviewing Nicola Green on Woman's Hour May 2003
* Click here to listen to Claudia Hammond interviewing Nicola Green on Emotional Rollercoaster March 2004

House Slave - Field Slave

Touring exhibition "House Slave - Field Slave" October 2007 Dulwich Picture Gallery - exhibition and workshops in the Sackler Centre for Arts Education

The Laughing Record by Nicola Green

UK No.1 Hit Single for Seven Weeks!

“An artwork designed for those with funny bones” The Sunday Times

Artist Nicola Green made a record of all kinds of people laughing all over the world. An edited version of The Laughing Record was the B side to the 2005 Comic Relief single, "On The Way To Amarillo" by Peter Kay, holding the No.1 spot in the UK singles charts for seven whole weeks.

The original artwork is a limited edition vinyl picture disc. You can buy your own Laughing Record, one of 999 signed and numbered copies. for £150.

The Laughing Record is a 10” vinyl picture disc created by the artist to be both looked at and listened to, with decorated cakes on either side. It is designed to be hung on the wall and can be taken down to play on a turntable. It is a soundscape of laughter, with 8 minutes and 19 seconds of people laughing from ordinary people like the dentist and the doctor and the builders and the schoolkids, to famous people like Clive Anderson, Mark Steel, Arthur Smith and Prunella Scales who specially recreated her Sybil Fawlty laugh for the first time since Fawlty Towers was made. Nicola even persuaded Bill Clinton to laugh like Leonard Cohen, but failed to record it. She nearly cried.

Nicola Green explains the concept of The Laughing Record: “When I was a teenager I used to listen to a hilarious 1920's German laughing record with a friend; it was a recording of a man
trying to play a trombone to a woman but both kept collapsing into giggles. My friend died ten years ago and I decided I'd like to make a contemporary version with no music or words; just pure laughter from many different sources. I wanted to explore the concept of identity through laughter. I started to take more notice of how people laugh and realised how distinctive and revealing each laugh is. Our experience, culture and our desires all inform the way we laugh. The sound of a laugh is a very powerful portrait of a human being.”

People who have so far acquired the limited edition include Fatboy Slim, Gavin Turk, Paul Merton, Emma Freud, Angus Deayton and Richard Curtis. Other collectors of Nicola Green’s work include Nigella Lawson and Elle MacPherson.

Copyright © 2006 Nicola Green

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