Exhibition
Ulay Life-Sized
13 Oct 2016 – 8 Jan 2017
Address
- Römerberg
- Frankfurt
Hesse - 60311
- Germany
Travel Information
- Dom/Römer
Schirn presents the first ever major survey exhibition by this exceptional artist.
About
He describes himself self-deprecatingly, as the “most famous unknown artist”: Frank Uwe Laysiepen aka Ulay (*1943). Ulay radically merges his own life with art. With his artistic concept of transformation, he constantly creates new identities. His preferred medium is photography. Initially, in form of Polaroid, photography became an integral part of his artistic practice with its earliest results from 1970. The instant camera picture, which has now been replaced by the digital image, represents for Ulay the material in his long search for the representation of life. His body still today serves as the object of his research, where various influences leave traces and can be read, just like on a canvas. SCHIRN presents the first ever major survey exhibition by this exceptional artist. In addition to numerous individual actions of performative photography and body art, Ulay has realized many projects with other artists or has been influenced by them: Through the friendship withJürgen Klauke he discovered separately the problem of identity and invented so called performative photography; with his muse Paula Françoise-Piso he created photographic series, in which he intensified self-analysis until its complete dissolution; with his former partner Marina Abramović he eventually gained an extension of performance art that belongs to the most influential activities in that genre till today. The exhibition at SCHIRN brings together Ulay’s remarkable oeuvre in a comprehensive way. On show are both new works and performances, devised by the artist specifically for this exhibition, as well as numerous works of art, which he held back for years and which are now on view publicly for the first time.