Orlan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Orlan
Born	(1947-05-30) May 30, 1947 (age 78) Saint-Étienne, France

Orlan (born in 1947) is a famous French artist. She uses many different ways to create her art, like sculpture, photography, videos, and even new technologies. She explores ideas using 3D art, video games, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

Orlan also uses scientific and medical methods, such as surgery and biotechnology, in her art. She says her art is not "body art" but "carnal art." This means she uses her body as a tool or canvas to explore ideas, but without focusing on suffering.

About Orlan's Life and Art

Early Career and New Ideas

In 1978, Orlan started the International Symposium of Performance in Lyon, France. She led this event until 1982, bringing together artists to explore new ways of performing.

Between 1990 and 1993, Orlan created a series of art projects that involved surgical operations. She called this her "carnal art" manifesto. During these projects, her own body became a place for public discussion about art. These performances were very well-known and caused a lot of talk, even though they were only a small part of her overall work.

Exploring Digital Art

Orlan was also one of the first artists to use new technologies. In 1982, she and Frédéric Develay launched Art-Accès-Revue. This was the first online magazine for modern art, using a system called Minitel.

The magazine invited artists from all over the world to create special artworks for Minitel. Many artists played with the computer graphics style of Minitel. The magazine also included essays and allowed the public to share their thoughts. This early digital art project was even shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Blending Cultures and Science

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Orlan created a series called "Self-Hybridations." In these works, she used digital photography and computer software to blend faces from different cultures. She combined features from Native American, pre-Columbian, and African faces with her own.

Orlan also pushed the limits of art by using biotechnology. She created an art piece called Harlequin Coat. This artwork was made using her own cells, as well as human and animal cells. It explored ideas about mixing different origins and identities.

Teaching and Recognition

Orlan taught at the École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris-Cergy. She also had art residencies in New York and Los Angeles. In 2005, she stayed at the ISCP in New York. In 2006, she was invited to the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

In 2013, she won the Grand Prix de le-Réputation award for visual arts. This award celebrates the most popular people on the internet. In 2019, she was a judge for the Opline Prize, which is the first online art award.

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Orlan wrote her autobiography. It was published by Gallimard in 2021. On November 29, 2021, she received the National Order of the Legion of Honor. This is a very important award in France, given by the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot.

Famous Art Projects

The Reincarnation of Sainte-Orlan

In 1990, Orlan started a major project called The Reincarnation of Sainte-Orlan. For this, she had a series of artistic transformations. She used elements from famous paintings and sculptures of women as inspiration. These projects were filmed and shown in art places around the world.

Orlan chose these famous women not because they were seen as beautiful. Instead, she picked them because of the stories connected to them. She wanted to challenge ideas about beauty and what is considered "normal." Orlan said her work is "a fight against what is natural, what is expected, what is programmed."

One part of this project was called "Le baiser de l'artiste" (The Artist's Kiss). Orlan created a character called "Saint Orlan" for this. She explored the different ways women are seen in society, like religious figures and social stereotypes. This artwork was shown at the Paris International Contemporary Art Fair.

Art in the 2000s

In 2001, Orlan created "Le Plan du Film." For this, she made a series of movie posters with different artists and writers. She then worked backward to imagine the film, including the cast, script, and even a trailer.

In 2008, she worked with the Symbiotica lab in Australia to create "The Harlequin's Coat." This bio-art project used living cells, including her own, to explore ideas about identity and mixing different origins.

Orlan also has an ongoing project called "Suture/Hybridize/Recycle." In this series, she takes her old clothes apart and puts them back together in new ways. This highlights the "sutures" or seams, showing how things can be deconstructed and rebuilt.

In 2018, Orlan created a robot that looks like her, called "Orlanoïde." This robot uses artificial intelligence and speaks with her voice. It reads texts from a special text generator. The "Orlanoïde" was shown at the Grand Palais in Paris.

In 2019, Orlan received a special award called WOMAN OF THE YEAR from the Prince of Monte Carlo. She was also named a Professor Emeritus at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.

Key Artworks

Here are some of Orlan's most important and recent artworks:

• Orlan and the Orlanoïde (2018): This is an electronic and verbal "strip-tease" performance. A robot that looks like Orlan sings or speaks using her voice. It also dances, using information gathered from people and special computer programs.
• Experimental Play (2015): This is a video game where the player controls an avatar (a digital version) of Orlan. The goal is to fix destroyed artworks. As the player fixes more, the avatar becomes more "human," and the ruined landscape is rebuilt. The game is based on the idea that "killing is not playing."
• Self-Hybridizations: Peking Opera Masks, Facing Design and Augmented Reality (2014): In this series, Orlan blends her face with traditional Peking Opera masks. This interactive photo series uses augmented reality. When you scan the artwork with a phone, an avatar of Orlan appears on your screen. You can then take pictures with the avatar and share them online.
• Freedom Skinned (2013): This is a 3D video that shows Orlan's body modeled in 3D. It's a strong statement about how important it is to always protect freedom.
• Drapery without Bodies, Fold Sculptures (2010): These are sculptures of fabric folds without a body inside. They are made from resin with gold leaf or platinum.
• The Artist's Slow Dance (2021): A recent work by Orlan.

Important Early Works

• Orlan Gives Birth to Herself (1964): In this black and white photograph, Orlan appears to give birth to a figure that is neither male nor female. This work shows her desire to create her own identity.
• MesuRages (1974-2011): In this series, Orlan used her own body as a new unit of measurement. She "measured" famous places like St. Peter's Square in Rome and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. This project also had a political side when she measured a square in Liège to support its protection.
• The Drapery-Baroque (1979-1986): This series of photographs uses images inspired by Christian art. It includes characters like Saint Orlan, the white virgin, and the black virgin. These works continue Orlan's exploration of female identity and her thoughts on religious ideas.
• Omnipresence (November 1993): In this project, Orlan worked with a surgeon in New York. She had implants placed in her temples to change her face. The goal was to use plastic surgery in a new way, questioning standard ideas of beauty. This project was shown live in art galleries and on CNN.
• This is My Body…This is My Software… (1990): This was a performance and a talk where Orlan presented her "Manifesto of Carnal Art."
• The Film Plan (2001): Orlan started this project by creating movie posters first. Then, she developed the cast, script, and even a soundtrack and trailer for a film that didn't exist yet. She showed all this work at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Self-Hybridizations (1998-2002): These are digital images where Orlan virtually transforms her image. She blends her face with features from different cultures, like Amerindian, pre-Columbian, and African. This work questions how ideas of beauty change across different times and cultures.
• The Harlequin's Coat: This art installation combines art and biotechnology. It uses living cells from Orlan and cells from different human and animal sources. The work explores ideas of mixing and accepting others, like a harlequin's colorful, patched coat. It also looks at the connection between biotechnology and art.

Orlan has said that her ultimate artwork would be to have her mummified body displayed in a museum. However, she has not yet found a museum for this project.

Orlan's artworks can be found in many important museums. These include the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work is also in many private collections.

See also

In Spanish: Orlan (artista) para niños