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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Julian LaVerdiere is among contemporary artists, Matthew Buckingham, Mark Dion, Rodney Graham, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, whose work addresses "obsolete technologies, crusading innovators, discredited beliefs and compromised ideals." Using the imposing physical presence and scale of his objects along with the pointedly chosen facts of the accompanying texts his work sends "a mixed message, inviting an idealized encounter with the past while counseling the viewer to ponder the political and moral lessons to be gained thereby" (Vetrocq).
LaVerdiere began by participating in group exhibitions in 1992, while still a BFA student at New York's Cooper Union and later received an MFA from Yale in 1995.
He had his first solo gallery show in 1999, at Andrew Kreps in New York. Two years later he was as a member of the team of designers that created the "Tribute in Light" memorial at the World Trade Center site.
LaVerdiere's background in special-effects work, (pyrotechnics, robotics, and model building) for the theater and advertising, began first as a student and later with Big Room, the production-design firm which he and two friends formed after their Yale graduation.
The artist explains his work by saying, "This manner of historical hypertexting is not intended as didactic, critical commentary or as cautionary tale-telling, but rather as inspirational, romantic propaganda to help continue the march of progress that has brought our civilization from the Industrial to the Information Age."
Source: Marcia Vetrocq, Art in America, June 2003 |
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