Series:

Action ORLAN-corps, MesuRage d'institutions et de rues

Creator:

ORLAN

Performer:

ORLAN

Bibliographical sources:

Bernard Blistène, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Caroline Cros, Régis Durand, Eleanor Heartney, Laurent Le Bon, Hans Ulrich Obrist, ORLAN, Vivian Rehberg, Julian Zugazagoitia, ORLAN, Paris, Editions Flammarion, 2004, pp. 34 - 35
Joerg Bader, Lóránd Hegyi, Marcela Iacub, Donald Kuspit, Peggy Phelan, Eugenio Viola, ORLAN, The Narrative/Le Récit, Milan, Editions Charta, 2007, pp. 24 - 26
- Cruz Sanchez Pedro Alberto, De la Villa Rocio, Garelick Rhonda, Serres Michel, Tejeda Isabel, Vu Lan, ORLAN + davidelfin. SUTURE-HYBRIDISATION-RECYCLING, catalogue of the exhibition held at Espacio Artes Visuales, Editions E.A.V., Murcia, Spain, 2008, pp. 124

Producer:

ORLAN

Website:

//www.orlan.net/works/performance/

Theoretical background:

The name of this series of performances, begun in the late 1960s, insists on the word “Rage,” that of the artist who refuses to play the role people want to impose on her. Using the ORLAN-body, a new unit of measurement, ORLAN measures the length and width of the street by leaving chalk marks on the sidewalk. In this way, she incorporates Protagoras’s statement that “man is the measure of all things.”

The acts performed during MesuRages d’institutions et de rues are provocations regarding our relationship to urban spaces and the place we occupy in them: “Are modern cities made to our measurement? Does the street belong to us bodily?” asks ORLAN. It is saying that the relationship between space and body is fundamental, that the body is an incomparable instrument of perception and familiarity, and yet it is neglected. At the same time, ORLAN, as a woman artist, indirectly evokes the tasks (laundry, sewing...) that are traditionally reserved for women in order to keep them subjugated.

Occurence:

Places:

rue Chateaubriand

Starting date:

1978

Topology:

street

Adress:

rue Chateaubriand

Nice

Objets:

l'eau sale du MesuRage recueillie dans un flacon étiqueté, numéroté et cacheté

Technique description référence:

une robe-tablier faite dans les draps du trousseau

Technique description référence:

une robe-tablier faite dans les draps du trousseau

plaque commémorative

Technique description référence:

plaque commémorative

ORLAN, MesuRage de la rue Chateaubriand, Nice (France), série « Action ORLAN-corps, MesuRage d'institutions et de rues »

Technique description référence:

1976, photographie noir et blanc, oeuvre unique (x 3)

47 x 58 cm (cadre noir + passe partout 56 x 67 cm)

Documents:

constat

Type:

Manuscrit

Technique description référence:

constat

Description:

On the residential street of Chateaubriand, ORLAN sets up her easel on which are written the space-time coordinates of the street, slips on a tailored house dress in the sheets of her trousseau, gets down on all fours, lies down and traces a chalk line behind her head. Starting with this mark on the ground, she repeats the act as many times as necessary to take possession of the place. She counts out loud in the presence of two witnesses the number of ORLAN-bodies, then counts the total number and records it on paper. She takes off the dress and washes it in public while catching the dirty water in a flask that she labels, numbers, and seals with wax. She concludes her performance with a gesture like the Statue of Liberty’s, brandishing the flask in the air.