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Orlan is known for her "carnal art" that explores the body, surgery, biotechnology, and new media. She has created performances, installations, sculptures, and self-hybridizations inspired by art history and culture.
Apr 5, 2019 · ORLAN is a contemporary artist who used plastic surgery to transform her face and body in the name of art. She was inspired by classical paintings and challenged the standards of beauty. See her artworks, biography, and news on artnet.
- French
- Summary of Orlan
- Accomplishments
- Biography of Orlan
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ORLAN molds her own flesh in the service of her art. Transforming her face over the course of several surgeries in the 1990s, she is a pioneer of what she terms "Carnal Art". She raises fascinating questions of beauty, self-image, and consent, prefiguring and inspiring many of the conversations taking place today on the subjects of transhumanism, u...
ORLAN is often characterized as part of the Body Artmovement. Whilst she undoubtedly shares many concerns and practices with these artists, and inspired many artists working with their bodies today...Whilst ORLAN's work may seem shocking, it has a strong connection to art-historical precedents, which the artist sees as being updated and developed by her surgical and bodily interventions. ORLAN...Although ORLAN's body is the subject of her work and the undoubted focus, the means through which she attracts her audience's attention to her body, such as using cameras, microscopes, and live fee...ORLAN's use of her own body sits alongside a career-wide commitment to experiments with new technologies and innovative uses of existing tools. ORLAN is a pioneer of internet and Digital art throug...Early Life
The artist known as ORLAN was born as Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte in Saint-Étienne in 1947. To this day, she shares very little information about her youth and personal life. Art historian, critic, and curator Barbara Rose explains that "As a star in her own literal 'theater of operation,'. ORLAN leaves her background deliberately fuzzy, the better to maintain the anonymity required to project an enigmatic 'star quality.'" When the artist turned fifteen, she officially changed her name t...
Education and Early Career
ORLAN tells those who ask that she started making art "when I was a baby", and that she briefly attended art school at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts and at the School of Fine Arts of Saint-Étienne (ESADSE), but dropped out because it "was too conventional from me". As many other artists were, she was inspired by the social unrest of May 1968, which saw the economy of France cease to function due to general strikes, demonstrations, and the occupation of universities. This event, which some...
Mature Period
In 1978, ORLAN created the International Symposium of the Performance in Lyon before moving to Paris in 1980. She worked out of a studio in the working-class suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine, next-door to the insane asylum where French writer and artist Antonin Artaud spent the final two years of his life. ORLAN used inmates from the asylum in her early tableaux vivants. In 1982, she and artist Frédéric Develay created the first online magazine of contemporary art, Art-Accès-Revue, on Minitel (a prec...
ORLAN is a pioneer of performance art, body art, and identity art, who transforms her own face through surgery and technology. Learn about her life, work, and achievements in this comprehensive artist profile.
- May 30, 1947
Découvrez l'oeuvre d'ORLAN, artiste multimédia engagée dans la défense des animaux et des droits des femmes. Explorez ses projets, ses expositions, ses livres et ses collaborations avec d'autres artistes.
Aug 7, 2017 · ORLAN is a French artist who has used her own body as a canvas for 50 years, exploring identity, gender, and technology through plastic surgeries, digital manipulation, and performance. See her work at Berlin's La Plaque Tournante gallery, which spans from her early kisses to her recent self-hybridizations.
Jun 14, 2021 · ORLAN is a multimedia artist who uses biogenetic and surgical techniques to create sculptures, performances, and videos. She is known for her self-hybridizations, reincarnation of Sainte-ORLAN, and her legal dispute with Lady Gaga.
In 1993 she received the Prix Mona Lisa and Prix Prix Lavoisier (France). In 1989 and 1992 she received two grants from FIACRE (Fonds d’Innovation Artistique et Culturelle en Rhône-Alpes) for her research and residency in Chennai (Former Madras, India).
