| LAFFOLEY ARCHIVE: Paul Laffoley Biographical Info |
| CONDENSED BIOGRAPHY: |
  Laffoley
attended Brown University,graduating in 1962 with honors in Classics, Philosophy, and Art History. In 1963, he attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and apprenticed with the sculptor Mirko Basaldella before being dismissed from the institution. He was dismissed for "conceptual deviance", after the majority of his designs were given a grade that designates the project not as good or bad, but as 'currently technologically or physically impossible'. Thereafter, he moved to New York to apprentice with the visionary architect Friedrich Kiesler. He was also hired for the design team of the World Trade Center, but was soon after fired by the chief architect, Minoru Yamasaki, for his unconventional ideas. He had apparently always been quite an 'unconventional' person. By Laffoley's account, he spoke his first word ("Constantinople") at the age of six months, and then lapsed into 4 years of silence, having been diagnosed with slight Autism. Laffoley has written that, in his senior year at Brown, he was given eight electric-shock treatments. As a child he attended the progressive Mary Lee Burbank School in Belmont, Massachusetts, where his draftsman's talent was ridiculed by his Abstract Expressionist teachers.  Laffoley
later began work (and live) in an eighteen-by-thirty foot utility
room to found the Boston Visionary Cell, where he continued for
nearly 41 years.In 1965, he completed the first paintings of a mature style in the household basement against the wishes of his father. Christmas (1968), after a quarrel with a first studio partner, Laffoley was in immediate need of a studio and living accommodations. Having only one day to relocate, Paul found an empty room on the second floor of a downtown office building at 36 Bromfield Street in Boston, and immediately moved in. This studio would become infamously known as the Boston Visionary Cell (formally incorporated in 1971 as a non-profit art association encouraging art and architecture of the visionary genre). The room was stacked from floor to ceiling with books, journals, religious artifacts, diagrams, more books .. and of course dozens of paintings. Visitors reported seeing minimal or no kitchen arrangements and according to some there was NO BED, just the drafting table, art supplies and all the books. Now clearly following his path as a painter, he began a highly original approach to the construction of the painted surface. Based on extensive hand written journals documenting his research, diagrams, and footnoted predecessors to various theoretical developments, Laffoley began to first organize his ideas in a format related to eastern mandalas that had captivated his interest in the spiritual. This format quickly developed into Laffoley’s three sub-groupings of work: Operating Systems, psychotronic Devices and their related Lucid Dreams. Conceived of as “structured singularities”, Laffoley never works in series, but rather approaches each project freshly, and individually.  At the BVC Laffoley has produced the large majority of his art. Working in a solitary lifestyle, each 73 ½ x 73 ½ inch canvas can take one to three years to paint and code. By the late 1980’s, Laffoley began to move from the spiritual and the intellectual, and evolved to the view of his work as an interactive, physically engaging Psychotronic device, similar to architectural monuments such as Stonehenge or the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with their spiritual focus and interactive functionality. In 2006 the property management company discovered that Paul was living in this space which is not zoned for habitation. He was sued for eviction but the court case was dropped during a series of sublimely synchronistic events. 
During a CAT scan of his head in 1992, a cylindrical piece of
metal3/8 of an inch long was discovered symmetrically lodged in Paul's brain. It is in the exact middle of his head, in the occipital lobe of his brain, near the pineal gland. The CAT scan was advised by his dentist, after noticing something unusual in a routine x-ray before a root-canal. The dental technician asked Laffoley "Uh ... Sir, have you ever been shot in the head?" Local Mutual UFO Network investigators declared it to be "an alien nanotechnological laboratory." Laffoley has come to believe that the "implant" is extraterrestrial in origin and is the main motivation behind his ideas and theories. In 1998 Laffoley was featured in "The Mystery of Genius" (two part series). It aired on the Arts & Entertainment Channel. He has produced an estimated 600(?) of his immensely detailed canvases. Paul has been quoted as saying that at any given time there are dozens of these works already fully-articulated in his mind, waiting to be painted and circling like airplanes in a holding pattern waiting to land. "Paul Laffoley, a painter and architect, is one of the most encyclopedic of visionary geniuses." ~Alex Grey, Visionary Artist In the summer of 2001, Laffoley fell from a 20-foot ladder and broke both legs. His right leg subsequently became infected and was amputated below the knee. He documented some of his theories about why his fall occurred in the oil painting The Fetal Dream of Life into Death (2001-02). After his amputation, in honor of his lost foot, Paul took some of the proceeds from his art and consulted Hollywood special effects guru Stan Winston (special effects creator for top films including - Aliens, Predator, Terminator series, Jurassic Park, etc.) to create an anatomically correct, fully functional prosthetic LION'S FOOT, which Mr. Laffoley wears to lectures and special occasions.(Absolutely not kidding here. BTW, Paul is a LEO). Since 1966 to the present, Laffoley has exhibited on a regular basis now totaling over two hundred shows 
including the Ward-Nasse Gallery until 1984, then with the Stux
Gallery (Boston/New York) in 1985, and since 1988 at the Kent
Gallery, New York. In 1989, Kent Gallery compiled and published
the first monogram on Laffoley entitled The Phenomenology of
Revelation. Laffoley also obtained his formal Architectural License in October 1990. His first museum retrospective was in 1999 resulting in the publication of the second Laffoley monograph entitled Architectonic Thought-Forms: Gedankenexperiemente in Zombie Aesthetics: A Survey of the Visionary Art of Paul Laffoley Spanning Four Decades, 1967-1999, to the Brink of the Bauharoque. After the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, Laffoley was one of a number of architects who submitted designs accepted for the competition to plan the Freedom Tower. Paul had worked on the original design team in during the mid-1960s designing interiors for floors 17 through 45 on the North Tower.  Laffoley took his inspiration from the work of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. His conception was to plan a gigantic hotel in the style of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona. You can see Paul's submission in the archives of the Official WTC memorial website. He has been lecturing again as of 2005 and his most recent major showing was the "Mind Physics" exhibition at Kent Gallery, January 4th - February 17th, 2007. You can hear him discuss his work on internet radio from February 12th 2007 (on Mike Hagen's RadiOrbit for a 3 hour show). He also spoke at length (3 hours) during the EsoZone Conference in Portland OR, August 10-12th 2007 and will be attending the 2008 event as well. Paul currently lives in a new studio space in Boston, Massachusetts and is still producing his amazing transdisciplinary art! |
| Bio
Text:
compiled & rephrased primarily from various internet sources,
including Kent Gallery, Paranoia magazine and personal phone interviews
- Image Credits: The Bourdeau Brothers. Stills from Rustbelt Films/Topsy-Turvy Productions DVD "Laffoley's Odyssey" |
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LaffoleyArchive.com
™(Thought
Mark) 2007-2013-2063-2099 - Michael Coleman (MIQEL.COM)
All Art, Quoted Text and Images are © Paul Laffoley Please don't republish these images or essays in print form for commercial uses, yet please spread these advanced concepts and futuristic ideas far and wide! Mr. Laffoley is represented by KENT Gallery, NYC. Refer to Douglas Walla for image-use arrangements and purchase of original works They will be publishing the Laffoley "Catalogue Raisonne" of complete works and extended commentary by Paul in 2008-2009 |
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