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John Lurie

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John Lurie (born December 14, 1952) is an American actor, musician, painter and producer.

Biography

Lurie was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, moved to New Orleans at the age of 6, then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts.

In 1978 he formed The Lounge Lizards with his brother Evan Lurie. The Lounge Lizards exhibited the talent of artists such as Calvin Weston, Billy Martin, Oren Bloedow, Steve Bernstein, Marc Ribot, and Erik Sanko, among others. The band continued to make music for 20 years. During this time, Lurie recorded 22 albums and composed scores for over 20 movies, the most notable being Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Clay Pigeons, Animal Factory, and Get Shorty, which earned him a Grammy nomination.

During the 1980s he starred in three films directed by Jim Jarmusch, (On Jim Jarmusch:"The people in our culture now who have made it—like in that early period, they were the bottom of the list—the David Byrne’s, the Jim Jarmusch’s, the Tom Cruise’s, they were the kid who would bring the teacher an apple. There would be a math genius sitting next to you, he would get nowhere. He might blow up the school but that would be the extent of his accomplishment. But that person that knew how to play the whole thing for themselves—but it had nothing to do with talent. ")Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, and Permanent Vacation. He went on to have roles in other notable films including Paris, Texas and The Last Temptation of Christ'(On working with Scorsese: "“He’s a little dope,” you know? That was not a comfortable experience working on “Last Temptation…”). Lurie also starred, during 2001-2003, on the HBO prison series Oz as inmate Greg Penders ("The “Oz” thing, I did it as a lark and then they told me I’m a regular character like I had no choice. Then they told me this thing that my character was going to do which sounded great so I accepted. But this stuff they promised never got shot. I turned down a fortune to be in that stupid TV show...").

His 1991 TV series Fishing with John, which he wrote, directed and starred in, was a cult success.[citation needed] The critically acclaimed series aired on IFC and Bravo. Episodes included guests Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, Jim Jarmusch, and Dennis Hopper. It has since been released on DVD by Criterion.

In 1993 Lurie, with Howard Shore, composed the theme to Late Night with Conan O'Brien which was also used as the theme to The Tonight Show when O'Brien hosted.

In 1999 Lurie released the album The Legendary Marvin Pontiac - Greatest Hits, which was purportedly a posthumous collection of the work of an insane African-Jewish musician named Marvin Pontiac (1932–1977). Pontiac, however, was a fictional character, [1] and the music was actually written by Lurie, and performed by Lurie, John Medeski, Billy Martin, G. Calvin Weston, Marc Ribot, and Tony Scherr.[2] The album included praise from David Bowie, Angelique Kidjo, Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, and others, who were in on the joke, and a fictional "biography" was published by Allmusic[3]

Since the late 1990s, Lurie claims to have been diagnosed with a number of diseases, including advanced Lyme disease, mercury poisoning, a rare form of epilepsy, a rare form of multiple sclerosis, malaria, basilar migraines, and an autoimmune disorder stemming from chronic hepatitis B. "Well, it’s probably Lyme disease. It depends on who I believe. It’s MS; it’s an auto-immune disorder. I’ve had 30 different diagnoses. It’s a rare form of migraines. It’s a rare seizure disorder. Who knows?"[citation needed]

Lurie has said that his illnesses have kept him from acting or performing music. He now spends most of his time in his apartment playing online poker, or traveling to disseminate his conjecture that the painter John Perry is stalking him. Though Lurie can produced no evidence to support his claims, he states regularly in the press that Perry intends to murder him.

Painting

For the last six years, Lurie has been exhibiting his paintings, and credits painting with "saving his life",[4] referring to his illness and seclusion.

In spring 2004, he had his first exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Within 10 minutes of the opening night, all the pieces were sold.[citation needed] His subsequent exhibitions at Galerie Daniel Blau in Munich; Galerie Lelong in Zürich and Galerie Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam were all met with equal success. [citation needed] Lurie was represented at the Basel International Art Fair in June 2005, 2006 and will be again this year. In January 2005, Lurie exhibited his second show in New York at Roebling Hall's new Chelsea location. On April 30, 2006, Lurie opened his first solo museum show at P.S.1. Contemporary Arts Center, New York. In 2007, his work was showcased at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.[5]

Lurie continued to exhibit in domestic and international venues in 2008. A collection of work was displayed at the NEXT Art Fair Chicago and Luries work was exhibited at the Mudam Luxembourg from October through December in 2008. In addition, The Museum of Modern Art and The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford have acquired his work for their permanent collections. .[6]

Lurie has also made his work available to the public via two art books. In June 2006, Lurie released his first book, Learn To Draw, a compilation of black and white drawings published by Walther Konig. In May 2008, Lurie's most recent release, A Fine Example of Art, a hard cover, full color book of over 80 reproductions of his work, published by powerHouse Books, was made available at select domestic and international book stores as well as on Amazon.com.

Lurie's watercolor painting Bear Surprise achieved enormous popularity on numerous Russian websites, in an Internet phenomenon known as Preved.[7] Lurie combined text and images in unique and interesting ways creating a personal mythology that breaks down the distinctions between real experiences and the imaginary. Lurie has showed his works at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Roebling Hall, and Anton Kern gallery in New York, and Galerie Daniel Blau in Munich.[8] They were on show at the Mudam museum in Luxembourg from October 11, 2008 to December 8, 2008. John Lurie's show The Skeleton in my closet has moved back out to the garden, was on view at Fredericks & Freiser (536 W. 24th St. betw. 10th & 11th Aves.) from October 10 to Saturday, November 7, 2009.[9]

From January 30th through May 9, 2010, the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo dedicated their entire museum to exhibiting hundreds of Lurie's works.

Filmography

Discography

John Lurie

Lounge Lizards

Soundtracks

References

  1. ^ Robins, Wayne (2008-04-21), Behind The Legend of the Legendary Marvin Pontiac: A Conversation with John Lurie, Emusic Magazine {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ The Legendary Marvin Pontiac - Greatest Hits, Emusic.
  3. ^ Marvin Pontiac, Allmusic.
  4. ^ "John Lurie's Works on Paper". The Leonard Lopate Show. 2006-06-14. WNYC. {{cite episode}}: Check date values in: |airdate= (help); Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ "John Lurie: The Erotic Poetry of Hoog"
  6. ^ MoMA permanent collection search
  7. ^ CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times
  8. ^ John Lurie at P.S. 1, ARTINFO, May 5, 2006, retrieved 2008-05-20
  9. ^ John Lurie in Chelsea, Basquiat Blog.

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