This is a photographic series in which ORLAN incorporates elements from the story of Peau d’âne into self-portraits.
Peau d’âne is a princess whose father has asked her to marry him because he has promised his mother, the queen, that he will only marry a woman more beautiful than herself, and Peau d’âne is the only such woman. His daughter escapes his father’s desire by dressing in the donkey’s skin.
To escape the father’s territory, you have to change your skin. ORLAN then decided to experiment with new, multiple forms, in a humorous, distanced vein. ORLAN is in favor of shifting, mutant, nomadic identities, not fixed ones.
In this series, ORLAN has a different outfit for each photo, as well as a hat ranging from a kepi to a mitre, a cap and a donkey’s head.
In 1989 and 1992, ORLAN received two grants from FIACRE and the Fonds d’Innovation Artistique et Culturel en Rhône-Alpes, to take up a residency in Chennai (then called Madras), India. For her second three-and-a-half-month trip, she was accompanied by Stephan Oriach, a director with whom ORLAN had collaborated in the past.
His trip to India was part of “le plan du film”, a series of works imagined from the reading of a quote by Jean-Luc Godard: “The only greatness of Jacques Becker’s Montparnasse 19 is that it is not only an upside-down film, but in a way the upside-down of cinema.” The concept was to take Godard literally, to create an upside-down film, starting with the poster and promotion with the trailer, letrilles, a soundtrack and a TV show to launch the feature. ORLAN enlisted the help of Publidécor, an advertising agency specializing in 1950s painted movie posters, to create fourteen painted posters based on photos of the artist and recycled works. Her intention with these hand-painted acrylic posters on 3 m x 2 m canvases was to tell the story of her life in art. ORLAN made the posters using the names of her friends in the art world at the time, and one or two names of movie stars to make it seem as if the film existed. She also staged a fake press conference with director Bigas Luna and curator Lorand Hegyi for a Valencia biennial. She invited a number of journalists to talk about a film she had made that didn’t really exist.
Peinture Problématique Géométrique, Paris, France 1971-1974
Like many artists, ORLAN began her career as a painter. She didn’t want to create anything mawkish and she didn’t want to use a paintbrush, such a common, traditional tool!
ORLAN paints with a gun from a garage near her home. She’d convinced him to lend her a space to work in, away from the dust, outside opening hours.
First she researched, sketched and drew, then composed abstract works that she spray-painted on white laminate using resist systems.
The paint seeped under the pieces of tape, but ORLAN persevered until the rendering was perfect, to create extremely glossy works, lacquered like a mirror in which one can mirror oneself. It’s geometric abstract painting, like industrial painting, and there’s not the slightest trace of a body, but it’s still the viewer who makes the work! When he passes by and observes the painting, he can see himself in it at the same time. The body is there, the spectators are in the work of art! The work of art is their mirror.
