Performance

These images testify to the After Party at Silencio, where ORLAN performed “Je Suis Slowsexuel.le” with Sir Alice and “Les corps de métiers m’excitent” with Tentative, who also provided a DJ set throughout the evening. Octave de Bascher photographed the event and its exceptional guests. Her costume was designed by Beñat Moreno, and featured a lycra dress and chiffon cape. He created a textile print using the slogans on the signs, all in black and white. With this costume, ORLAN becomes a manifesto, visually embodying her concept. The Grand Jury, comprising President Michèle Lamy, Diane Pernet, Christophe Mecca, Sophie Rosemont, Sophie Duplaix, Elisabeth Couturier, Laurent Goumarre, Florence Tredez, Leïla Voight, François Renard, Raphaël Fontang and Léonard Lasry, awarded first prize to Mimosa, who received the original Slow de l’Artiste cape, made by Beñat Moreno, as well as an edition of L’originie de la guerre, second prize to Sir Alice, who received an edition of Zoom Baroque, Plis et Déplis, and third prize to Tentative, who received an edition of La pétition contre la mort. Tentative, doubly rewarded, won the Audience Prize, and received an edition of ORLAN and l’ORLANoïde: Masques sans corps sur texte généré par l’ORLANoïde. 

She realized that many of her assistants had never slow-danced before, and decided that she couldn’t go on like this – she had to do something for young people! With this project, she hopes to help people discover and revive this dance as a therapeutic treatment in this still difficult period of reconstruction.

ORLAN wrote the lyrics for each slow, which she then proposed to musicians to create the melody and sing her texts. She then inserted her voice into the music, in collaboration with the guest.

This album brings together twenty extraordinary slows created by orlan in complete osmosis with fantastic artists. : Sir Alice, Jean-claude Dreyfus, Terrenoire, Les Tetines Noires, Les Chicks On Speed, Mimosa, Yael Naim, Tentative, Regis Campo, Myope, Blue Carmen, Les Sans Pattes, La Femme, Romain Brau, Charlie Morrow, Demi Mondaine, Charlemagne Palestine, Kat May Et Iury Lech.

The vinyl is on sale at FNAC and on all platforms. Several clips have been produced to visually illustrate ORLAN’s message: she made “Je suis slowsexuel.le” with Sir Alice and “Les corps de métiers m’excitent” with Tentative. A book will be published with texts written by the artist. ORLAN  has performed on several occasions with musicians including Demi Mondaine on Culture Box.

ORLAN collaborates with Say Who to photograph the Grand Jury Prize. Laurent de Cernet, director of Olympia, opened the doors of his historic billiard room to ORLAN for this major event. Ruinart teamed up with ORLAN to make the evening even more sparkling, and the artist herself offered her iconic recipe for Lait de Vierge, guaranteed impure, with no colorants or preservatives. She proposed a listening session commented and performed by Beñat Moreno, so that an exceptional jury could vote for the three best slows on the album. The jury included President Michèle Lamy, Diane Pernet, Christophe Mecca, Sophie Rosemont, Sophie Duplaix, Elisabeth Couturier, Laurent Goumarre, Florence Tredez, Leïla Voight, François Renard, Raphaël Fontang and Léonard Lasry. A few VIPs joined us for the event, which was followed by an after-party at the Silencio Club. Her costume was designed by Beñat Moreno, and featured a lycra dress and chiffon cape. He created a textile print using the slogans on the signs, all in black and white. With this costume, ORLAN becomes a manifesto, visually embodying her concept.

She realized that many of her assistants had never slow-danced before, and decided that she couldn’t go on like this – she had to do something for young people! With this project, she hopes to help people discover and revive this dance as a therapeutic treatment in this still difficult period of reconstruction.

ORLAN wrote the lyrics for each slow, which she then proposed to musicians to create the melody and sing her texts. She then inserted her voice into the music, in collaboration with the guest.

This album brings together twenty extraordinary slows created by orlan in complete osmosis with fantastic artists. : Sir Alice, Jean-claude Dreyfus, Terrenoire, Les Tetines Noires, Les Chicks On Speed, Mimosa, Yael Naim, Tentative, Regis Campo, Myope, Blue Carmen, Les Sans Pattes, La Femme, Romain Brau, Charlie Morrow, Demi Mondaine, Charlemagne Palestine, Kat May Et Iury Lech.

The vinyl is on sale at FNAC and on all platforms. Several clips have been produced to visually illustrate ORLAN’s message: she made “Je suis slowsexuel.le” with Sir Alice and “Les corps de métiers m’excitent” with Tentative. A book will be published with texts written by the artist. ORLAN  has performed on several occasions with musicians including Demi Mondaine on Culture Box.

Of course, spectators were invited to dance, to get closer, to rediscover themselves…. ORLAN lines the exhibition room from floor to ceiling with cardboard signs bearing the project slogans “JE SUIS SLOWSEXUEL.LE”, “NOUS SOMMES SLOWSEXUEL.LE.S”, “JE SUIS ARTSEXUEL.LE”, “NOUS SOMMES ARTSEXUEL.LE.S”. These signs were used by ORLAN during her first demonstration “Je Suis Slowsexuel.le”, which appears at the end of her eponymous title “Je Suis Slowsexuel.le”. They have become a ubiquitous iconographic feature of the project. Facet balls and light projections create a sensual, intimate space. ORLAN created two augmented reality avatars in her image, in reference to the album cover. One in a blue wig, the other in a two-tone wig, both in costume with her manifesto dress. Her costume was designed by Beñat Moreno, and featured a lycra dress and chiffon cape. He created a textile print using the slogans on the signs, all in black and white. With this costume, ORLAN becomes a manifesto, visually embodying her concept. To mark the closing of her exhibition, ORLAN stages the very first showcase of the album, performing “Je Suis Slowsexuel.le” with Sir Alice, “Contre la Mort” with Demi Mondaine, “Les corps de métiers m’excitent” with Tentative, “Sortir du Noir” with Kat May and “Bléssé.és, écorché.es, boulversé.es, transpercé.es” with Blue Carmen.

She realized that many of her assistants had never slow-danced before, and decided that she couldn’t go on like this – she had to do something for young people! With this project, she hopes to help people discover and revive this dance as a therapeutic treatment in this still difficult period of reconstruction.

ORLAN wrote the lyrics for each slow, which she then proposed to musicians to create the melody and sing her texts. She then inserted her voice into the music, in collaboration with the guest.

This album brings together twenty extraordinary slows created by orlan in complete osmosis with fantastic artists. : Sir Alice, Jean-claude Dreyfus, Terrenoire, Les Tetines Noires, Les Chicks On Speed, Mimosa, Yael Naim, Tentative, Regis Campo, Myope, Blue Carmen, Les Sans Pattes, La Femme, Romain Brau, Charlie Morrow, Demi Mondaine, Charlemagne Palestine, Kat May Et Iury Lech.

The vinyl is on sale at FNAC and on all platforms. Several clips have been produced to visually illustrate ORLAN’s message: she made “Je suis slowsexuel.le” with Sir Alice and “Les corps de métiers m’excitent” with Tentative. A book will be published with texts written by the artist. ORLAN  has performed on several occasions with musicians including Demi Mondaine on Culture Box.

Of course, spectators were invited to dance, to get closer, to rediscover themselves…. ORLAN lined the exhibition room from floor to ceiling with cardboard signs bearing the project slogans “JE SUIS SLOWSEXUEL.LE”, “NOUS SOMMES SLOWSEXUEL.LE.S”, “JE SUIS ARTSEXUEL.LE”, “NOUS SOMMES ARTSEXUEL.LE.S”. These signs were used by ORLAN during her first demonstration “Je Suis Slowsexuel.le”, which appears at the end of her eponymous title “Je Suis Slowsexuel.le”. They have become a ubiquitous iconographic point in the project. Faceted balls and light projections create a sensual, intimate space. ORLAN created two augmented-reality avatars in her own image, in reference to the album cover. One with her blue wig, the other with her two-tone wig, both costumed with her manifesto dress. His costume was made by Beñat Moreno, and consisted of a lycra dress and a chiffon cape. He created a textile print using the slogans on the placards, all in black and white. With this costume, ORLAN becomes a manifesto, visually embodying her concept. On the occasion of the opening, ORLAN organizes a demonstration/performance with her studio, friends, extras and people who have joined her at the CENTQUATRE. She walks through the entire CENTQUATRE, then finishes in her installation, where she invites everyone to dance Slow, and she herself dances with her audience. ORLAN or Beñat Moreno will perform this intervention every Saturday for the duration of the exhibition.

She realized that many of her assistants had never slow-danced before, and decided that she couldn’t go on like this – she had to do something for young people! With this project, she hopes to help people discover and revive this dance as a therapeutic treatment in this still difficult period of reconstruction.

ORLAN wrote the lyrics for each slow, which she then proposed to musicians to create the melody and sing her texts. She then inserted her voice into the music, in collaboration with the guest.

This album brings together twenty extraordinary slows created by orlan in complete osmosis with fantastic artists. : Sir Alice, Jean-claude Dreyfus, Terrenoire, Les Tetines Noires, Les Chicks On Speed, Mimosa, Yael Naim, Tentative, Regis Campo, Myope, Blue Carmen, Les Sans Pattes, La Femme, Romain Brau, Charlie Morrow, Demi Mondaine, Charlemagne Palestine, Kat May Et Iury Lech.

The vinyl is on sale at FNAC and on all platforms. Several clips have been produced to visually illustrate ORLAN’s message: she made “Je suis slowsexuel.le” with Sir Alice and “Les corps de métiers m’excitent” with Tentative. A book will be published with texts written by the artist. ORLAN  has performed on several occasions with musicians including Demi Mondaine on Culture Box.

She’s creating an evening that’s all about the vulva! For example, she invited Circé Deslandes, who had sung a torrid lyric entitled “Ta bite debout sur le bar” in a very sweet, gentle voice. ORLAN did a concert with Chicks on Speed. She also invited singers MADMOIZEL and QUEER to take part in the event, as well as female DJs such as Piu Piu and TGAF.

On arrival at the nightclub, people were presented with a mask printed with a photo of ORLAN’s vulva, a reworking of a work created long ago in the video Mise en scène pour un grand fiat (1984), which was shown in full that evening. She also printed the same photo of her vulva, enlarged and cut into strips so that people could pass over and over it as they moved around Salò. ORLAN also exhibited works from the Masques de l’Opéra de Pékin series in several rooms, facing designs and augmented reality, as well as several projected videos.

This work is a self-portrait in the form of a biotechnological performance, a snapshot of a biological moment.  In this digital experience, the ORLAN-CORPS is measured by the public’s finger and eye through the mediation of the bacteria that live there in symbiosis, co-authors of all human identity. What we now call the microbiota. ORLAN-CORPS becomes a public space for a “nanoscale striptease”. ORLAN cultivates its oral, vaginal and intestinal flora. 

ORLAN wishes to demonstrate that, for a woman, striptease is an “impossible”, because they cannot undress us from all the images that dress them and all the fantasies, all the standards of beauty, all the a priori that cover them and prevent them from being seen. These are leaden garments that stick to the skin and act as a screen.

She used her body to measure the entire façade of the museum, despite the pain. The result is a series of extraordinary photos highlighting the architecture of the M HKA designed by Robbrecht & Daem. Marina Abramovic, a close friend of ORLAN who performed the day before in Antwerp, was a witness to MesuRAGE, as were Jan Fabre, Flor Bex and Barbara de Koening.

Through these performances, ORLAN used her body as a new measuring instrument: the ORLAN-CORPS. ORLAN has used this principle to measure streets named after historic stars (most, of course, are men, with rare exceptions) and to measure cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Musée Saint-Pierre des Beaux-arts in Lyon, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg and the M HKA in Antwerp. ORLAN has also measured the Le Corbusier unit in Firminy,  the Vatican and many other places.

The idea behind this performance was to take Protagoras’s theory that “Man is the measure of all things” and apply it to a pseudo-scientific method of measurement.

The MesuRAGEs protocol is very precise: ORLAN puts on a dress made from the sheets of her trousseau, always the same until it wears out, complete or almost. She has created several installations with the dress between two glass or Plexiglas partitions.

ORLAN measures the determined space with her body by lying on the ground and drawing a chalk line behind her head, then getting down on all fours and moving forward again, lying on her back with her shoes flush with the line. ORLAN counts the number of times her body is contained within this space, and her witnesses count aloud, “One ORLAN-CORPS, two ORLAN-CORPS, three ORLAN-CORPS…”. Then, each of the witnesses signs the report drawn up at the very beginning of the performance on a large sheet of Canson paper attached to a drawing board placed on an easel, and it is finalized by marking the number of ORLANs contained in the space with the signatures of each of the witnesses and ORLAN’s signature.

Then she fetches water, removes her dress and washes it in public. She takes samples of this dirty water into vials, which are then labeled, numbered and sealed with wax to produce an edition with a photo of the finding. ORLAN then exhibits these samples, findings, photographs and videos in galleries and museums, along with commemorative plaques and her life-size effigy with the last pose, such as the Statue of Liberty, the dress or the ORLAN-CORPS measuring instrument – all concrete relics, the convinctions of these ephemeral moments.

These performances put the body back into play.

Through these performances, ORLAN used her body as a new measuring instrument: the ORLAN-CORPS. ORLAN has used this principle to measure streets named after historic stars (most, of course, are men, with rare exceptions) and to measure cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Musée Saint-Pierre des Beaux-arts in Lyon, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg and the M HKA in Antwerp. ORLAN has also measured the Le Corbusier unit in Firminy,  the Vatican and many other places.

The idea behind this performance was to take Protagoras’s theory that “Man is the measure of all things” and apply it to a pseudo-scientific method of measurement.

The MesuRAGEs protocol is very precise: ORLAN puts on a dress made from the sheets of her trousseau, always the same until it wears out, complete or almost. She has created several installations with the dress between two glass or Plexiglas partitions.

ORLAN measures the determined space with her body by lying on the ground and drawing a chalk line behind her head, then getting down on all fours and moving forward again, lying on her back with her shoes flush with the line. ORLAN counts the number of times her body is contained within this space, and her witnesses count aloud, “One ORLAN-CORPS, two ORLAN-CORPS, three ORLAN-CORPS…”. Then, each of the witnesses signs the report drawn up at the very beginning of the performance on a large sheet of Canson paper attached to a drawing board placed on an easel, and it is finalized by marking the number of ORLANs contained in the space with the signatures of each of the witnesses and ORLAN’s signature.

Then she fetches water, removes her dress and washes it in public. She takes samples of this dirty water into vials, which are then labeled, numbered and sealed with wax to produce an edition with a photo of the finding. ORLAN then exhibits these samples, findings, photographs and videos in galleries and museums, along with commemorative plaques and her life-size effigy with the last pose, such as the Statue of Liberty, the dress or the ORLAN-CORPS measuring instrument – all concrete relics, the convinctions of these ephemeral moments.

These performances put the body back into play.

This performance in the form of a medical intervention was realized in 2007, when ORLAN was invited for a three-month residency at the University of Perth in Australia, where they created the SymbioticA laboratory through Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr in the Department of Human Anatomy and Biology, in collaboration with BioArt technician Jens Hauser.

The staging was minimal: around the hospital bed on which ORLAN lay, dressed in harlequin cloth, were two sheets of the same fabric, one velvet and the other satin.

A diamond-shaped incision was made in the groin crease by burn surgeon Fiona Wood.

Following this medical intervention, the installation “Le manteau d’Arlequin” was created.

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, composed by the group Tanger, 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 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.

There were also real film directors like Richard Dembo, as well as many actors and actresses, Sylvie Testud, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Jean-Christophe Bouvet…film and art critics like Christine Buci-Glucksmann and artists like Raymond Hains.

ORLAN recreated a fake TV set and projected the movie posters. Each of the actors and actresses seemed to have just come out of the premiere, telling the story of the film, the story of the shoot and their relationship with the cast and crew.

The “Exogène” exhibition, created by Bruno Guiganti and Morten Salling, took the form of a multi-part criminal investigation and identity quest. Works created by ORLAN using her own blood and flesh have been submitted to  the Danish forensic police for sequencing to verify whether they were created by the same artist. Sequencing analysis proved that they had indeed been produced by ORLAN. These works were a reliquary with flesh in the center and a St suaires soaked in ORLAN’s blood.

This fiction within a fiction spread throughout Copenhagen. Wanted posters featuring ORLAN were then put up all over the city, and a skull supposedly found by the art center was handed over to the criminal investigation department to find out if it might belong to her.

Traces of this investigation (works by ORLAN, fingerprints, DNA sequencing, wanted notices, skulls, etc.) were then exhibited in the desecrated Nikolaj Church, transformed into an art center.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

Among the medical team and the STUDIO ORLAN team, there was a woman specializing in sign language for the deaf and hard of hearing, and this character was there to remind us that we are all deaf and hard of hearing at certain times. His presence in the operating theatre was a display of body language. She was assisted by Raphaël Cuir, videographer Tom Klinkowstein, who handled the satellite transmission, Sophie Thompson, who took care of the English translation, and Connie Chung, the famous star broadcaster of the time, who asked to be in the operating room with ORLAN and did a full report on the CNN evening news at 8pm. She came to France to attend ORLAN’s wedding to Raphaël Cuir in Sologne. 

During this mythical operation, ORLAN had solid silicone implants placed on her cheekbones to enhance them on both sides of her forehead. The idea was to create an operation that wouldn’t bring beauty but, on the contrary, undesirability and monstrosity. ORLAN wanted to demonstrate that beauty is a dictate of the dominant ideology in a geographical and historical point in time. These bumps have become organs of seduction. ORLAN says “it’s my convertible”. 

Thanks to Christian Vanderborght, this performance was broadcast live via satellite to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Mac Luhan Centre in Toronto, the Banff Multimedia Centre, Canada, Belgium, Germany, Latvia, Japan, the Netherlands, New York, Santa Monica and in France to Nice and Lyon. Spectators from all over the world were able to watch the operation and ask questions, which ORLAN answered live as soon as the surgical procedure allowed. Participants in the satellite transmission at the Centre Georges Pompidou included Gladys Fabre, Jean-Paul Fargier, Christian Vanderborght and François Barré, President of the Centre, among others.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

LA RÉINCARNATION DE SAINTE-ORLAN OU IMAGES NOUVELLES-IMAGES DITES OPÉRATIONS-CHIRURGICALES-PERFORMANCES, is a series of 9 performances created by ORLAN between 1990 and 1993 in Paris, Brussels and New York. ORLAN created this series to derail surgery from its habits of enhancement and rejuvenation, and to perform surgical operations that weren’t supposed to bring beauty, but ugliness, monstrosity and indesirability. 

The central idea behind these surgical operations was to combat stereotypes and models. ORLAN is not against cosmetic surgery, but against what we do with it. She uses this technique to invent the self-love by attacking the mask of the innate. The first condition with the different surgeons was no pain, because ORLAN is all for BODY-PLEASURE. For each performance, ORLAN decorated the operating theatre, turning it into her artist’s studio. She and the rest of the medical staff were costumed by a renowned designer working in collaboration with the artist. The performances were orchestrated by readings, and when the surgical gesture allowed it, ORLAN produced images, films, videos, photos, drawings with her blood and fingers, reliquaries with her fat and flesh, “holy-suaries” of sorts made with her dried blood and medical gauze from the operation onto which she made photographic transfers, and objects subsequently exhibited in museums and galleries.

Through these performances, ORLAN used her body as a new measuring instrument: the ORLAN-CORPS. ORLAN has used this principle to measure streets named after historic stars (most, of course, are men, with rare exceptions) and to measure cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Musée Saint-Pierre des Beaux-arts in Lyon, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg and the M HKA in Antwerp. ORLAN has also measured the Le Corbusier unit in Firminy,  the Vatican and many other places.

The idea behind this performance was to take Protagoras’s theory that “Man is the measure of all things” and apply it to a pseudo-scientific method of measurement.

The MesuRAGEs protocol is very precise: ORLAN puts on a dress made from the sheets of her trousseau, always the same until it wears out, complete or almost. She has created several installations with the dress between two glass or Plexiglas partitions.

ORLAN measures the determined space with her body by lying on the ground and drawing a chalk line behind her head, then getting down on all fours and moving forward again, lying on her back with her shoes flush with the line. ORLAN counts the number of times her body is contained within this space, and her witnesses count aloud, “One ORLAN-CORPS, two ORLAN-CORPS, three ORLAN-CORPS…”. Then, each of the witnesses signs the report drawn up at the very beginning of the performance on a large sheet of Canson paper attached to a drawing board placed on an easel, and it is finalized by marking the number of ORLANs contained in the space with the signatures of each of the witnesses and ORLAN’s signature.

Then she fetches water, removes her dress and washes it in public. She takes samples of this dirty water into vials, which are then labeled, numbered and sealed with wax to produce an edition with a photo of the finding. ORLAN then exhibits these samples, findings, photographs and videos in galleries and museums, along with commemorative plaques and her life-size effigy with the last pose, such as the Statue of Liberty, the dress or the ORLAN-CORPS measuring instrument – all concrete relics, the convinctions of these ephemeral moments.

These performances put the body back into play.

On the occasion of her residency at the Getty Research Institute in 2007, ORLAN asked the eminent researchers in residence with her that year to give her a book, or the title of a book that had most influenced their thinking, their work, their lives. The artist placed them all on a large granite block at the entrance, where the words “Getty Research Institute” were engraved, then lay down next to the books, and asked someone to remove the ones sticking out of her body. After measuring them with her body, ORLAN read them continuously, annotating them. ORLAN carried out this performance several times in her life, in different places and circumstances, a performance of the body to the corpus of the book.

On the last day of installation before demolition, ORLAN uses the elements, in particular the columns, to create perspectives for a grand performance. ORLAN put out a call through the press for young children to appear in the performance. On the day of the show, ORLAN had the children’s families sign image rights, and dressed them up as putti, loves and cherubs with little white wings, masks, bows and long trumpets…ORLAN herself was dressed as a Madonna covered in peacock feathers and little white feathers. 

The artist stood high up on a mobile podium, which she moved aside to let the children pass, simulating a metaphorical childbirth. She also had a very large effigy articulated like a puppet with which she played and made children play.

ORLAN took many photos that were used for installations projected onto the ceilings. Antenne 2 was also filming with Jacques Martins.

In the installation, the entrance was decorated with artistically draped hangings topped by a black-and-white photo of Sein unique, Monstration phallique. Once inside, visitors were confronted with a personal theater made up of real, artificial and virtual 3D elements: a resin statue of Saint Orlan, a single bare breast and a finger raised to the sky, plastic flowers mixed with lilies and arums, a hologram representing an angel, live doves. Real and fake marble plaques and photographs of ORLAN as a madonna were placed on the floor in front of the statue, and a series of columns from the Opéra de Lyon formed a semicircle around it. Behind the statue, she had placed a large halo of mirrors, in fact a video monitor showing the space and part of her sculpted face, accentuating the perspective effect created by the combination of architectural elements. The title refers to her own ironic canonization, her appropriation of the role of the Saint and her own designation of a place for this cult.

An association working for its reconstruction asked the artist to come via Cirque Divers. ORLAN measured this square in a completely different way: she used the shovels that had destroyed it and worked with the site workers, because she didn’t want to roll around in the mud and dirt of the building site, as the work would have read differently. Every day, an excavator would take ORLAN to the day’s stage, producing a shocking image of her being transported in her “scrap metal maw”. She’d moved on to the day’s stage, and she’d started the MesuRAGE with wooden planks laid by the workers in front of her, so that she could measure (without getting dirty) the number of ORLAN-CORPS contained in this square and its construction site. On the third day, she was arrested by the burgomaster: they forbade her to continue this performance, which was great for the Place Saint-Lambert association who had invited her, because this event made the headlines, putting their fight in the spotlight! Today, the square has become an abomination, with everything concreted over.

Through these performances, ORLAN used her body as a new measuring instrument: the ORLAN-CORPS. ORLAN has used this principle to measure streets named after historic stars (most, of course, are men, with rare exceptions) and to measure cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Musée Saint-Pierre des Beaux-arts in Lyon, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg and the M HKA in Antwerp. ORLAN has also measured the Le Corbusier unit in Firminy,  the Vatican and many other places.

The idea behind this performance was to take Protagoras’s theory that “Man is the measure of all things” and apply it to a pseudo-scientific method of measurement.

The MesuRAGEs protocol is very precise: ORLAN puts on a dress made from the sheets of her trousseau, always the same until it wears out, complete or almost. She has created several installations with the dress between two glass or Plexiglas partitions.

ORLAN measures the determined space with her body by lying on the ground and drawing a chalk line behind her head, then getting down on all fours and moving forward again, lying on her back with her shoes flush with the line. ORLAN counts the number of times her body is contained within this space, and her witnesses count aloud, “One ORLAN-CORPS, two ORLAN-CORPS, three ORLAN-CORPS…”. Then, each of the witnesses signs the report drawn up at the very beginning of the performance on a large sheet of Canson paper attached to a drawing board placed on an easel, and it is finalized by marking the number of ORLANs contained in the space with the signatures of each of the witnesses and ORLAN’s signature.

Then she fetches water, removes her dress and washes it in public. She takes samples of this dirty water into vials, which are then labeled, numbered and sealed with wax to produce an edition with a photo of the finding. ORLAN then exhibits these samples, findings, photographs and videos in galleries and museums, along with commemorative plaques and her life-size effigy with the last pose, such as the Statue of Liberty, the dress or the ORLAN-CORPS measuring instrument – all concrete relics, the convinctions of these ephemeral moments.

These performances put the body back into play.

Six men carried the shrine horizontally through the museum in a slow procession, then placed it vertically to present ORLAN to the standing public. Each fold of fabric was connected to a nylon thread, itself linked to rings placed on the fingers of each of his assistants. They moved the wires like puppets in front of a live camera that projected these draping studies throughout the performance onto 28 video screens. ORLAN then stepped out of the Plexiglas shrine, slowly removing the folds of fabric around her head, also unwrapping the object she carried in her arms, resembling a small swaddled child. Then, still in slow motion, the artist unfolded a very large ribbon as she spun around, gradually revealing a loaf of bread painted blue on the outside (the crust), and red on the inside (the crumb). She tore the head into bread, broke the child into pieces and ate him.

Then she untied her hair before getting down on all fours to cross a large circle of white flour, gradually advancing towards a very long red carpet. Slowly, from all fours, ORLAN wrapped herself in this red fabric, gradually transforming herself into an enormous red ball. The more she draped herself, the harder it became to wrap herself in more red fabric.

Through these performances, ORLAN used her body as a new measuring instrument: the ORLAN-CORPS. ORLAN has used this principle to measure streets named after historic stars (most, of course, are men, with rare exceptions) and to measure cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Musée Saint-Pierre des Beaux-arts in Lyon, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg and the M HKA in Antwerp. ORLAN has also measured the Le Corbusier unit in Firminy,  the Vatican and many other places.

The idea behind this performance was to take Protagoras’s theory that “Man is the measure of all things” and apply it to a pseudo-scientific method of measurement.

The MesuRAGEs protocol is very precise: ORLAN puts on a dress made from the sheets of her trousseau, always the same until it wears out, complete or almost. She has created several installations with the dress between two glass or Plexiglas partitions.

ORLAN measures the determined space with her body by lying on the ground and drawing a chalk line behind her head, then getting down on all fours and moving forward again, lying on her back with her shoes flush with the line. ORLAN counts the number of times her body is contained within this space, and her witnesses count aloud, “One ORLAN-CORPS, two ORLAN-CORPS, three ORLAN-CORPS…”. Then, each of the witnesses signs the report drawn up at the very beginning of the performance on a large sheet of Canson paper attached to a drawing board placed on an easel, and it is finalized by marking the number of ORLANs contained in the space with the signatures of each of the witnesses and ORLAN’s signature.

Then she fetches water, removes her dress and washes it in public. She takes samples of this dirty water into vials, which are then labeled, numbered and sealed with wax to produce an edition with a photo of the finding. ORLAN then exhibits these samples, findings, photographs and videos in galleries and museums, along with commemorative plaques and her life-size effigy with the last pose, such as the Statue of Liberty, the dress or the ORLAN-CORPS measuring instrument – all concrete relics, the convinctions of these ephemeral moments.

These performances put the body back into play.

ORLAN had to undergo emergency surgery. While waiting for the ambulance, she still had time to get her team on board to film and photograph her operation. The video cassettes were then taken one by one to the festival, and the operation was screened at the FNAC as if it were a programmed performance. ORLAN has always thought of life as a reusable aesthetic phenomenon, and this was an obvious choice. This operation was decisive in his career.

Six men carried the shrine horizontally across Palazzo Grassi in a slow procession, then placed it vertically to present ORLAN to the standing public. Each fold of fabric was connected to a nylon thread, itself linked to rings placed on the fingers of each of his assistants. They moved the wires like puppets in front of a live camera that projected these draping studies throughout the performance onto 28 video screens. ORLAN then stepped out of the Plexiglas shrine, slowly removing the folds of fabric around her head, also unwrapping the object she carried in her arms, resembling a small swaddled child. Then, still in slow motion, the artist unfolded a very large ribbon as she spun around, gradually revealing a loaf of bread painted blue on the outside (the crust), and red on the inside (the crumb). She tore the head into bread, broke the child into pieces and ate him.

Then she untied her hair before getting down on all fours to cross a large circle of white flour, gradually advancing towards a very long red carpet spread out to the end of the boat dock from the center of Palazzo Grassi. Slowly, from all fours, ORLAN wrapped herself in this red fabric, gradually transforming herself into an enormous red ball. The more she draped herself, the harder it became to wrap herself in more red fabric. As the audience continued to watch her wrap herself, they had the impression that ORLAN was falling into the lagoon – a simple visual effect, since a boat was waiting for her below, onto which she fell and then unrolled, letting the red fabric fall gently into the Grand Canal.