ORLAN - Hatje Cantz

A two-page table of contents for a book on a pale pink background. The chapter titles are laid out in two columns and are written in both German, in a large red font, and English, in a smaller blue font. The content is about the artist ORLAN and themes of the female body, art, and feminism.

A page from an art publication about the artist ORLAN. On the left is a full-page, black-and-white photograph titled Body-sculpture No. 12 or exaltation. It depicts a nude woman from a high angle, in a contorted pose against a white wall, looking directly at the camera. On the right, an essay titled Refiguring the Female Body is presented in two columns, one in German and one in English.

A page from a book featuring an interview with the artist ORLAN. On the left is a dramatic black-and-white photograph from her 1967 performance Body-sculpture No. 6. It shows a woman in an arched pose on a surface, her arms raised and a dark shadow cast on the wall behind her. The right side has the title IN CONVERSATION WITH ORLAN: THE 1960S AND 1970S, followed by the interview text in German and English.

A book page displaying three black-and-white photographs of a performance art piece by ORLAN. The large photo on the left shows a woman in a white dress lying inside the metal bucket of an excavator. On the right, two photos show her crawling on all fours on a wet city street as pedestrians watch.

A book page layout with four black and white photographs documenting the 1983 performance art piece MeasuRAGE at the Guggenheim Museum. The images show women in various poses within the museum's distinctive architecture: lying on the curved floor and ramp, looking through a surveying instrument, and standing while holding a large cylindrical container high in the air.

A black and white diptych showing two photographs of a performance piece by the artist ORLAN. In the left image, she stands barefoot, encased in a rigid, rectangular straitjacket made of books. In the right image, she is slumped on the wooden floor, appearing exhausted while still trapped within the book structure.

A black and white photo series presented as a grid of 18 images. It documents a performance where a woman with long dark hair performs a striptease using voluminous white sheets. She begins completely concealed by the fabric, creating dramatic, sculptural poses. Frame by frame, she removes the sheets, culminating in her standing nude on the discarded pile. The final frame shows only the empty pile of sheets, the woman having disappeared.

A two-page spread of Orlan's Manifesto of Carnal Art from 1989, presented on a light pink background. The left page is in German with the title MANIFEST FLEISCHKUNST in red. The right page is the English translation, with the title MANIFESTO CARNAL ART in blue. Both pages feature black body text sectioned by bold headings.

A two-page spread from a book about the artist ORLAN. The left page features a photograph of a surgical performance: a person's face, seen from below, is covered in a shiny transparent film. A gloved hand holds a pair of forceps near their mouth. The right page contains text in both German and English with the title: ASSUMING AN INTIMATE DISTANCE – ORLAN'S ART OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION.

A two-page spread from a book displaying four color photographs of the artist Orlan's surgical performance piece from 1993. On the left, a portrait of Orlan is shown above an image of a surgeon preparing her face. On the right, Orlan is seen awake during the operation, with a close-up below showing gloved hands using surgical instruments on the skin above her eye.

A two-page book spread displaying five screenshots from a video game set in a dark, post-apocalyptic city. The images show characters in futuristic armor navigating rubble-strewn streets. One character hovers in the air, while other shots focus on a large, mangled section of a building suspended over the street in a cloud of dust.

ORLAN

Six Decades

€ 50.00

VAT included. Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout

Edited by: Dr. Gabriele Schor, Catherine Morris

May 2023, 304 Pages, 250 Photos

Hardcover

240mm x 292mm

ISBN: 978-3-7757-5432-3

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de

According to Article 9(7) of the GPSR Regulation, no additional security information is required for books without supplements or special functions.

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| The Art of Transformation

Using her own body as raw material for her artistic practice, French artist ORLAN deconstructs the traditional iconography of the feminine. In the 1990s, ORLAN caused a sensation with surgical operations performed on her body, but it was as early as 1964, at the age of 17, that she gave birth to her artistic self. Since then, she has continuously recreated herself and keenly explored the concept of identity. In her "carnal art," the body becomes both subject and object. This publication traverses the six decades of ORLAN's oeuvre, revisiting her early performances in particular. One of her most recent creations is the ORLAN-OÏDE robot, and thanks to an augmented reality app, ORLAN avatars come to life and emerge from this richly illustrated volume. The political status of the body is made evident through all of her works: in 1989 she transformed Gustave Courbet's famous painting L'origine du monde into L'origine de la guerre by replacing the vulva with the phallus. The statement has not lost any of its topicality.

ORLAN (*1947, Saint-Étienne) is one of the most noteable representatives of the feminist avant-garde and performance art as well as the founder of L'Art Charnel (carnal art). The French artist has been using her own body as artistic material for six decades. She lives and works in Paris.

EXHIBITION
Vertical Gallery, COLLECTION VERBUND, Vienna
March 21-July 29, 2023