Series:

Etude Documentaire : Le Drapé – Le Baroque

Creator:

ORLAN

Performer:

ORLAN

Theoretical background:

Demystify the saint: the appropriation of this "integrated woman" is a way to assess the strength of this icon and see how it could be transmitted through the disguise. Just like the denudation of this sacred figure, it is a way of distorting the myth to proclaim, according to ORLAN, the refusal of motherhood and most importantly, the will to become her own mother. Becoming her own mother implies the definitive and total disappearance of the maternal inheritance in its smothering aspect.

Occurence:

Places:

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice Jules Chéret

Starting date:

1980

4 heures

Topology:

museum/fondation

Background:

during the exhibition Sélections de la Biennale de Paris

Adress:

33 avenue des Beaumettes

Nice

France

ORLAN | Étude Documentaire : Le Drapé – Le Baroque au musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Nice (France), 1980

Synopsis / Description:

Capture vidéo de la performance d'ORLAN au musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Nice.
Courtesy Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (MAMAC) de Nice.
Numérisation réalisée par la Villa Arson, Nice.

Performances:

Documentary Study: The Drape - The Baroque in the Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Cheret, Nice (France)

Objets:

châsse de plexiglas, drapés, caisse de transport des oeuvres d'art, pain rouge et bleu, un tapis

Technique description référence:

châsse de plexiglas, drapés, caisse de transport des oeuvres d'art, pain rouge et bleu, un tapis

Description:

Orlan is located inside a Plexiglas reliquary revealing her body wrapped in the wedding sheets, also inside the Plexiglas shrine. The folds of her Baroque dress are stretched by nylon threads sticking out of the transparent box that her assistants can pull so that the folds unfold and wrap around the artist’s body. These drape movements are broadcast on video monitors. ORLAN’s face and breasts are painted white.

ORLAN’s assistants cut these threads; ORLAN, while drawing a gesture of designation positions herself on a board carried like a coffin and then moved around in the volume provided by the architectural route. The procession is very slow.

ORLAN then gets up and starts turning on herself, while unwrapping the drape around her face and the enwrapping she carries in her arms. The interior of this swaddling contents some bread, dyed in red and blue that ORLAN splits in two and gulps down, sometimes causing choking and vomiting.

The unwrapped fabric becomes a long train stretched in space. ORLAN's hair is revealed as well as one of her breasts and takes an ecstatic pose.

ORLAN is on all fours and walks on a carpet, in which she wraps herself to disappear.