1997

ORLAN: I CONSIDER MY BODY A SITE FOR PUBLIC DEBATE

Contemporary philosophical, anthropological, and sociological thought reflects the need to develop new concepts of being and the ways in which it is constructed.
In this context, particularly inspiring areas are science, biotechnology, and electronic communication systems, which, through their operational principles, allude to limitless possibilities for the free and autonomous “reconstruction” and “reinvention” of the self.
However, addressing this issue—given the complexity and opacity of the phenomenon and processes of global transformation—can often lead to two extremes. On one hand, it fosters rhetorical forms of futurophobia and technophobia, advocating a return to the ‘old, tried and tested’ values. On the other hand, from the same premises, it can lead to spectacular manipulation and flirtation with extreme actions, excess, categories of exhibitionism, and risk, sometimes culminating in blasphemy.
Examples of both types are visible in nearly all fields, from politics and culture to subcultures that gain increasing media attention.
A similar situation is evident in the world of art. One only needs to think of the trends to blend body art, performance, video, and painting, such as Keith Broadwey's “anal painting” or Peter Bonde's “oral painting”.
Extreme, radical forms of behaviour and action can be seen as symptoms of a particular era, with all their potential implications. In this light, the work of the French artist ORLAN can also be regarded.

Dobrila Denegri: Could you tell me how you perceive and approach the issue of the body, particularly the female body? 

ORLAN: Throughout history, the female body has faced strong social pressures, and even today, although women have fought for their rights, they still lack full control over their own bodies. The female body continues to be seen as an object that must, above all, be pleasing and alluring; it needs to conform to the current ideal of beauty. And women, for the most part, are willing to do anything to get closer to that ideal.
In America, due to the dominant influence of pop culture and the mass media, this issue is even more evident. Additionally, due to the social and cultural context, responses to my work are very intense. I can provide two examples. During a dinner before my exhibition opened at an American gallery, while discussing my work, I noticed that most of those present seemed uncomfortable. At first, I was confused, thinking that my work was not good or that there was some issue. However, I later realised that about seventy per cent of the women there had undergone plastic surgery (such as nose jobs, facelifts, etc.). On another occasion, during a TV programme I participated in with Madonna and Agnès Varda, I appeared with bandages, as it was immediately after the surgery. I publicly stated that my nose was still my ‘natural' nose. But that I intended, as my next intervention on my face, to enlarge my nose to the largest possible dimensions. This is an operation I plan to have in Japan in 2000.
After that show, three young women approached me and said they would like to have the same nose as mine, and asked if I could recommend a surgeon. 
Such episodes clearly demonstrate the ubiquity of the media's portrayal and construction of the “ideal” of beauty, and the extent to which women are willing to submit to these artificial stereotypes. 
My work aims to provoke a debate about this manipulation of appearance standards. A woman's appearance is dictated by male desire, and she still lacks full control over her own body. It remains an object subject to constant redesign. 
I believe that women should become independent in this regard and decide for themselves what their ideal models and paradigms will be...
In the future, women should be able to invent their own bodies.

DD: What is your stance on the phenomenon of female beauty and its depiction throughout history? Your performances, tableaux vivant, and photographs allude to the issue of portraying the female body in art, literature, or religion.

O: I don't want to resemble Botticelli's Venus, Gustave Moreau's Europa, François Gérard's Psyche, the School of Fontainebleau's Diana the Huntress, or Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa… 
My face is a combination of these images, which for me are merely symbols of a specific historical moment. They do not correspond to the contemporary ideal of beauty. 
The problem is that throughout history, women have existed only through representation. Almost all painters from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century tackled the subject of the female nude or portrait; yet, throughout the entire history of art of that period, there is no recorded female artist.
A woman relies on her body; pejoratively, she is “flesh”, which is why I create “carnal” art (the art of “flesh”) as a form of irony. Each of my performances is a carnivalesque representation of a specific gesture. My performances take place in an operating room, or operating theatre, a space where death is a daily reality. Carnivals, in many cultures, are also associated with the celebration of death and the remembrance of the deceased, the sacralised victims.

D: What does your pseudonym mean? Where did you get the idea to adopt the name ORLAN, and can its potential meanings... associations with Joan of Arc, Virginia Woolf's Orlando... be linked to the conceptual basis of your art?

O: It’s quite a long story. I chose that name when I started psychoanalytic sessions when I was eighteen, in 1965. After the first three sessions, my analyst asked me to pay by cheque in future. When I wrote the cheque the first time, he refused it and asked for cash again. The second time, I wrote the cheque again and realised that the last part of my name was associated with death (=mort).
I had chosen 'OR' as the initials for an imaginary name and invented ORLAN.

DD: Do you consider there to be an identification between life and art?

O: I think my work is quite close to Fluxus in some respects, but conceptually I would still distance myself from the phrase “art is life, life is art”. 
I draw a very conscious distinction between my life and the art I create. 
I'm not interested in the final instance of my work, that is, the moment when I have fully recovered from the operation and all the physical post-operative disturbances and analgesics. I don't want to be a living sculpture. 
For me, the transition from one state to another, from one identity to another, is much more important. 
My appearance itself doesn't interest me, either in my art or in my private life. That would be too simple and formal an approach to things. My appearance is just one ephemeral aspect of who I am as a person. 
Of course, despite the operations, my body changes and ages; still, the results of my art can only be seen on me. To sum up, in my case, there is a connection between these two categories—life and art—but it depends on the phase of my work.

DD: What does the transformation of the body mean to you, and what is your attitude towards travesty and exhibitionism? How do you plan each subsequent surgical intervention and the performance itself?

O: So far, I've had nine plastic surgeries. I had the first six in France, and the seventh (the most important), eighth and ninth with the help of a female surgeon, a feminist, Dr Marjorie Kramer. 
Each performance operation is constructed through philosophical, psychoanalytic, and literary texts that I read during the operation, as I am conscious and able to communicate with the audience in the gallery, who can follow what is happening in the operating theatre on a monitor and ask me questions. 
The last performance began in 1990 and has two titles: “Reincarnation of St. Orlan,” which alludes to a character/myth that I gradually created, incorporating the attributes and characteristics of the Virgin Mary, saints, and virgins from Christian tradition. 
The second title, “Image - New Image”, is linked to the Hindu idea of a deity that changes, mutating its appearance depending on its role and mission. On the other hand, this title alludes to the creation of a new image through new technology; I myself become the new image. 
What I am undertaking—through plastic surgery—could be called female-female transsexualism, alluding to transsexuals: a man who feels he is a woman inside wants others to see that he is a woman.
I consider my body a site for public debate, which raises the questions of this late-century period about the status of human (the body as nature) and about possible evolution with the help of contemporary technology and possible genetic manipulation. 
My work is a kind of warning: ‘Remember the future.’

DD: What is your relationship with fashion?

O: Every operation is like an initiation ritual. As a visual artist, I want to alter, design, and make the space in which this ritual takes place as glamorous as possible. 
In the majority of cases, the surgeons and I wear clothes by renowned fashion designers whose work I greatly admire: Paco Rabanne, Franck Sorbier, Issey Miyake, Lan Vu. 
Each operation has its own particular style, as the operating theatre is my studio at that moment; it's where filming, photography, and image creation take place. 
It's the moment when I create new images. The clothes play a very important role at that moment.

DD: When did you start doing performances related to plastic surgery, and are these kinds of changes, no matter how planned, a traumatic experience?

O: I started doing performance and body art back in the sixties. 
In that early period, I had to have emergency surgery; my body was ill and needed attention. Considering that the operation I was to undergo was an extremely significant event in my life, I decided to photograph and film it. The operation was a moving experience for me, as is any experience that brings consciousness into direct contact with the fact of death, of disappearance.
After many years, reading Eugénie Lemoine-Luccioni's book, “La Robe”, I returned to the idea of working with my own body, flesh, and skin. 
In my first operations, I had problems with the surgeons, as they would, regardless of my requests and instructions, always try to tie my new look to some prevailing stereotype of beauty. And that is precisely the opposite of my intention. I believe it is every individual's fundamental right to make conscious decisions for themselves.
The operation itself is no longer a traumatic experience for me, although the recovery process can be painful, which means I have to take painkillers.

DD: Do you identify with your appearance?

O: Since I started having surgery, of course, I've changed mentally, but that isn't down to the changes in my appearance; it's down to the real-world context I live in. I've never identified with my “image”.

DD: Are there any specific theoretical reference points on which you base your work, and do you find contemporary thinkers or artists whose views correspond with your own?

A: During the last operation, I was reading texts by Eugénie Lemoine-Luccioni, Michel Serres, Sanskrit and Hindu texts, and Artaud, who are simultaneously writers and thinkers from whom I have drawn deep inspiration. 
Among contemporary artists, I could also cite the Australian artist Stelarc. 
I must admit that most artists within the narrow, established art circle have succumbed to the laws of the market, global taste, and conformity, and the art they create has little to no real connection with reality.

Q: What is your opinion of Michael Jackson?

A: I would gladly transform into him, although it's not politically correct. 
What he is doing with plastic surgery and other hormonal interventions is the very opposite of the idea I am developing. To be clear, I'm not against make-up, fashion, cosmetics or cosmetic surgery, but rather against the manipulation of all these categories. Michael Jackson is responding to the demands of the market. My position and his are diametrically opposed, especially considering that his profession is to sing, not to change his appearance.
However, he is trying, in his own way, to shake up the dogma of “not touching” the body; the only thing is that a corresponding intellectual elaboration does not accompany such a gesture. I think that the current situation, the state of our civilisation, is such that we cannot afford to be deceived by frivolous changes.


Orlan currently has her hair dyed ultramarine blue, two protrusions resembling horns on her forehead above her eyebrows, and her face has been computer-generated as a combination of her own likeness, Botticelli's Venus, and Leonardo's Mona Lisa.