Book launch: Laughter - Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen

Laughter is based on reenactments of an old photograph entitled ‘Laughter - at the roof garden of Tobu building in Tokyo’ (1956) - a photo depicting a group of five people laughing uncontrollably. The project investigates what was so funny at the moment of the capture. No one in the picture remembers and the photographer (Kenji Omori) does not want to speak about the past. The text is based on a letter exchange between the owner, Yoshiko Okuzawa, and the artist, from 2007-2015. During the years of the letter exchange, the artist has restaged the photograph with different groups to which the artist belongs, such as friends, colleagues, students and family. Furthermore, the book contains an essay by An Paenhuysen.

Book layout by designer, artist and curator Mikkeline Daa Natorp from the exhibition phenomena Piscine in Aarhus. Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen and Mikkeline Daa Natorp will both be present at the book launch to introduce the publication.

Laughter is Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen’s second book publication. In 2013 her artist book Why is Green a Red Word? was published by Art Laboratory Berlin and later this year she will publish her third book Vagina Eating Husband in connection with an exhibition at Chiaki Kamikawa Contemporary Art Gallery in Cyprus.

The book was produced with support from the City of Aarhus.