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Laurie Anderson, Strange Angels

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Object Details

Design Director
Tibor Kalman, American, b. Hungary, 1949–1999
Designer
Emily Oberman, American, b.1963
Firm
M&Co, New York, New York, USA, 1979–1992
Catalogue Status
Research in Progress
Description
Album recto: Fully occupying the soft black background space is an above-the-waist photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe of Laurie Anderson, her head in a slanted, downward position; her face is in repose, with her eyes closed (or cast downward) and her lips curved slightly upward; her left arm is bent at the elbow and her left hand, fingers partly extended, is touching her head just behind her right ear; her hair is arranged in a spiked, but soft-looking, fashion. She is wearing a ight-on-dark geometically patterned tuxedo or smoking jacket over a wool or linen shirt and has a small post in her visible (right) ear. Her facial expression and pale skin tone produce an otherwordly effect, close in appearance to a death mask. In the upper right, Laurie Anderson Strange Angels is imprinted in small capital letters in electric blue in a spiral format.
Verso: On the same black background, In the bottom half, centered, is a frontal above-the waist photograph, also by Mapplethorpe, of Anderson, gazing upward, her lips slightly parted. Her shoulders are hunched forward and her hands, which are not visible, would appear to be in her lap. In the upper right hand corner are a pair of trousered legs and feet in snekers, perhaps Anderson's. To the left, in small capital letters in white, is a vertical list of the album songs, and to the right, production details. List headings are curved, echoing the album title (recto).
Inner sleeve: Recto and Verso reproduce the album's song texts. Three vignettes (a seascape, two children in an outdoor setting, a warrior with shield and spear) on one side and pictographs throughout are interspersed with the text.
Credit Line
Gift of Tibor Kalman/ M & Co.
1989
Accession Number
1993-151-61-1,2
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Type
graphic design
Object Name
Album Cover
Type
Album Cover
Medium
Offset lithography
Dimensions
1993-151-61-1, album, 31.3 x 31.3 cm (12 5/16 x 12 5/16 in.)
1993-151-6-2, inner sleeve, 30.4 x 30.6 cm (12 x 12 1/16 in.)
Place
USA
See more items in
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collection
Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design Department
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Record ID
chndm_1993-151-61-1_2
Metadata Usage (text)
Not determined
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/kq4bb378d16-8b11-4fde-9206-6736e5a331ea

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