Project: Lars Laumann – Morrissey Foretelling The Death of Diana

White Columns is proud to present the first New York solo exhibition by the Oslo-based artist Lars Laumann. In our Project space Laumann will present his 2006 video “Morrissey Foretelling The Death of Diana”. The sixteen minute video suggests – through an exquisitely constructed montage of found film and video footage, appropriated song fragments, and a meticulously researched voice-over narrative – that Morrissey, the former lead singer of The Smiths, somehow anticipated the 1997 death of Princess Diana via cryptic clues and asides secreted in his lyrics or embedded in images on Smiths’ record sleeves or in their pop videos. Focusing on a track-by-track analysis of The Smiths’ seminal 1986 Album “The Queen Is Dead” Laumann’s film adopts the form of a conspiracy-theory-cum-urban-myth, and despite its labyrinthine twists-and turns, seems to make absolute sense: somehow proving its case, suggesting that perhaps Morrissey – albeit aided and abetted by extraterrestrial forces – did indeed possess clairvoyant powers.

Lars Laumann lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Giving People What They Want’, Glass Box, Paris; ‘The Thick Plottens’, Galuzin Galleri, Oslo(both 2006); ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You’, Project 0047, Berlin (2005); amongst others. In 2007 he will show at Karma International, Zurich; ‘EAST International’, Norwich Gallery, Norwich, UK; and at the Photographer’s Gallery in Oslo. Laumann was the founder (2003 – 2005) of the show room ‘Schaufenster’ in Oslo; and in 2004 he edited the anthology ‘NESTEN!’

Lars Laumann’s exhibition has been generously supported by OFFICE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART NORWAY.

White Columns first saw Laumann’s work at the booth of the Oslo gallery Willy Wonka Inc., during the inaugural Milwaukee International Art Fair, Milwaukee, WI, in 2006. White Columns would like to thank Ida Ekblad and Willy Wonka Inc. for their enthusiasm and support