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 Courtauld 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 .
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
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| Laughing Portraits |
| Tuesday, 09 March 2004 |
An installation of filmed portraits by Lara Agnew and Nicola Green
The Laughing Portraits are individual filmed portraits shown on large format screens. Each portrait features one person, laughing, on a chair with a plain, black backdrop.
The Laughing Portraits subvert more traditional notions of portraiture, which tend to depict people in repose. When we see someone laughing we are shown a moment of abandonment and their mask being stripped away. These moving, living portraits make us think about laughter in a different way.
"Installations designed for those with funny bones" Steven Armstrong, Sunday Times 8.6.03
Laughing Portraits are one-off works and can be commissioned for public or private venues.
They have been exhibited at:
Vinyl Factory, London 2003
The Royal Brompton Hospital, London 2003
Port Eliot Literary Festival, Cornwall 2003
Your Shout Millenium Awards, Hampshire, 2003
Cork Institute of Technology Arts Festival, Ireland 2003
LAUGHING PORTRAITS first edition.
featuring Paul, Neelum, Justin, Claire and Taz
running time, 18 mins. format, DVD.
This video sequence lasts 18 minutes and is looped and displayed on two 60” monitors, back-to-back. The portraits are best viewed from beginning to end, as a linear sequence, because each successive laugher goes further than the previous one, culminating in a tumultuous 7 minute laugh. The infectious nature of the laughter, be it mischievous, pained, awkward or joyful, draws us in. Inevitably the viewer starts laughing too.
A starting point for the Laughing Portraits was a radio advertisement for lonely hearts. The advert, put out on Radio Libération some years ago, began with a woman crying. It ended with the same woman, having found romance, laughing. We discovered that the recording of her laughter was not in fact laughter at all but the sound of her crying played backwards.
It is not only the sound of laughter that is barely distinguishable from crying but also its physical expression. We cover our face, we shake, we sweat, we writhe. Indeed the core emotion expressed in hysterical laughter can be intimately connected to pain and release.
The experience of laughing is universal, yet absolutely individual at the same time. In the Laughing Portraits the sitter does not speak nor do we know anything about them. However each person’s laugh is unique and simply by witnessing it, in this abstracted way, we get a tremendous feeling for who they are. Our aim is to reach towards an observational, living portrait.
In the course of making this work we became very interested in the shape of a laugh, with its peaks and troughs, which are astonishingly similar to the experience of orgasm. Laughter has a peak that we build and even struggle towards; once reached we are not able to think nor speak, it is a moment of pure abandonment. Then the laughter subsides slowly and we continue, almost as a reflex, to chuckle and sigh until it has completely passed away.
The Laughing Portraits were filmed on one day in a studio in London. The process did not involve any comedy or gags, we simply asked our sitters to try not be shy, to access their laughter and to go with it when it came.
Copyright © 2003 Lara Agnew & Nicola Green
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