Carolyn Lazard

Lazard is a 2019 Pew Foundation Fellow, one of the first recipients of The Ford Foundation's 2020 Disability Futures Fellows Awards and a 2021 United States Artist Fellow. In 2023, Lazard was selected as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, colloquially known as the "genius grant."

Carolyn Lazard studied at Bard College and University of Pennsylvania. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is performance artwork, multi-media art and visual arts. Places of work recorded in the authority are Philadelphia. Distinctions recorded are Pew Fellowship in the Arts and MacArthur Fellows Program.

• Name — Carolyn Lazard • Birth Name — Carolyn Lieba Francois Lazard • Born — 1987 • Education — Bard College, University of Pennsylvania • Birthplace — San Bernardino, California

Carolyn Lieba Francois Lazard was born in 1987 in San Bernardino, California. Lazard graduated with a B.A. degree in 2010 from Bard College. They earned their MFA degree in 2019 from the University of Pennsylvania.

Lazard’s installation A Conspiracy (2017) "consists of a network of humming white noise machines hung from the ceiling above. These devices mask sound and are typically used in the home to induce sleep and concentration or in offices to provide privacy for workers. Lazard repurposes these mass-produced therapeutic objects to affect visitors’ experience as they move in and out of the gallery space. As described by the artist, A Conspiracy provides a location for viewers to gather in “conspiratorial speech and gossip.” In the video work, CRIP TIME (2018) "Lazard methodically replenishes an assortment of brightly colored pill boxes, their labels worn from use. One by one, each pill keeps time like an irregular clock. Lazard uses the durational medium of video to transform a seemingly mundane task into a new way of measuring time—one that reflects the experience of living with chronic illness. The concept of “crip time” rejects capitalist notions of worth and value that suggest we must always move forward and keep producing. In Lazard’s words,“the body is too unwieldy to fit within the schema of authoritative interpretation.” Lazard’s installation from the 2019 Whitney Biennial was titled Extended Stay (2019). For this installation “Lazard sourced a television monitor and armature of a sort frequently found in infusion centers where patients receive chemotherapy and other treatments. In making the work the artist asked the Museum to be wired for cable television. The resulting installation encourages visitors to reflect on the simultaneity of live television, bringing them into a shared media experience with hospital patients. Rather than playing a constant live stream, the television has been programmed to surf the channels autonomously.” Carolyn Lazard’s installation, "Long Take reorients the experience of performance, questioning the visual primacy of dance and returning it to the body. There are three screens, and there are benches (adapted as artworks to offer greater comfort and support than the standard institutional plank)... Leans, Reverses (2022), the main installation, itself leans between artwork and mediation, using audio description as both subject and material." Lazards 2025 exhibition TWO WAY at Artists Space "transformed the gallery into a two-chamber black box cinema, screening both a fictional and a documentary film, each shot at the simulation center of Elmhurst Hospital, a facility of NYC Health + Hospitals".... "Fiction Contract (2025), shown on the right side of the gallery, documents a childbirth simulation involving an all-Black team of healthcare professionals, alongside a Black birthing mannequin named Jada. The term “fiction contract” refers to the mutual agreement among simulation participants to engage with the scenario as if it were real, while remaining aware that it is, indeed, not."... "Vital (2025), screened in the gallery’s left chamber, is a fictional narrative. Set in the same simulation center."

• 2018 – SYNC, Essex Street Gallery, New York, New York • 2020 – Hintertür, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany • 2022 – Long Take, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota • 2022 – Long Take, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK • 2023 – Long Take, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • 2025 – Two-Way, Artists Space, New York, New York • 2025 – Corpus, Trautwein Herleth, Berlin, Germany

• 2017 – Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York, New York • 2019 – Colored People Time, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • 2019 – Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York • 2020 – Antibodies, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France • 2021 – Greater New York, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York • 2021 – Crip Time, Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany • 2022 – The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition at la Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy • 2023 – On the Value of Time, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany • 2023 – NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia • 2024 – Air de repos (Breathwork), Capc musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux, France • 2024 – Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York • 2026 – Collection as Cosmos, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands