ORLAN Manifesto: Body and Sculpture

Les Abattoirs, Musée—Frac Occitanie Toulouse are pleased to present a major exhibition of the artist ORLAN from April 8 to August 28, 2022. Her work, from the 1960s to the present day, will be considered in a new way. A new look at her entire career: from the Body-Sculptures photographs, the performances, the surgeries, the sculptures of folds to AI and robotics. More than a classic monograph, it is a manifesto exhibition, conceived in close collaboration with the artist, which will be proposed at Les Abattoirs. 

ORLAN is a key figure in the art of the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century. She has played a major role in the history of feminist and performance art. Throughout her career, ORLAN has stepped out of the frame and made her own body the medium, raw material and visual support of her work. From the outset, it has become the tool and material for a re-reading of art history and the norms imposed by society. Within a transdisciplinary approach that combines sculpture, performance, photography, video and installation, ORLAN uses both traditional and new technologies. ORLAN is a pioneering artist, as she was one of the first artists to use scientific and medical techniques such as surgery and biogenetics. She never ceases to call upon technological innovation to envisage humanity in all its dimensions. 

Since the 1960s, her innovative and subversive stances have subverted pre-established codes and conventions for example,  the Body-sculptures from 1964 to 1967. Not without humour and provocation, ORLAN opposes morality, natural and social determinisms, and all forms of domination: male supremacy, religion, cultural segregation, racism, etc. In 1977 she creates an unofficial performance, Le Baiser de l’artiste (the artist’s kiss), in order to critisize women’s representation and the art market. Her eminently political work commits us to emancipation and resistance to diktats. In 1990, she begins the series Surgical-Operations-performances. ORLAN sculpts her body and her identity; one could say that ORLAN is herself a sculpture. The artist manifests a boundless freedom and fights so that each and every one can conceive their own destiny, their own body.

The exhibition at Les Abattoirs will bring together around one hundred works and documents produced from the 1960s to the present day and drawn from a very wide range of media, including sculptures, her robot, photographs, videos, performances, etc. The exhibition will feature iconic and lesser-known works from public and private collections, as well as from the artist’s studio, and historical archives.

A catalogue will be published on the occasion of this exhibition by Éditions Manuella. The essays will provide a new perspective on ORLAN’s work.

The artist will hold a performance during her exhibition.

Curators
Julie Crenn, Art Historian and independent curator
Annabelle Ténèze, Chief curator, Director of Les Abattoirs

Also at Les Abattoirs
It’s Up To You To Choose, The Participatory Exhibition
Mezzanine Sud—Prize for young artists by les Amis des Abattoirs
Artist / Artisan? A New Presentation of the Daniel Cordier Collection

From July 1
Shona Illingworth: Topologies of Air

From October 7
Niki de Saint Phalle: The 1980s and 1990s. Art Running Free