An Unusual Experiment - Orlan and the Art of Transformation

Orlan (born 1947) is a French artist who shocks through her work, when she decides to " reincarnate ", undergoing numerous surgical interventions, which were intended to completely change her face, but also her body. " The principle of this self-remodeling is one of selection and combination, starting from several famous examples in the history of art; the result sought is the realization in her very being of a model of beauty that combines the chin of Venus in Botticelli's Birth of Venus, the eyes of Psyche in a painting by Gerome, the forehead of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the mouth of Boucher's Europa and the nose of a Diana in a painting from the School of La Fontainebleau. " [1] Orlan undergoes successive operations under local anesthesia, which allow her to remain lucid and participate in her operations. These operations were conceived, at the same time, as performance shows ( also known as a performance is an artistic form that combines elements of theater, music and visual arts, similar to a happening , usually meticulously prepared ) , so the participants were dressed in costumes created by renowned fashion designers and all the operations were accompanied by music and dance, which were simultaneously broadcast in art galleries. 

Critics speak of Duchamp's influence, but also of her closeness to members of the Fluxus movement , as well as to some body-art experiments , especially from the German-Austrian scene, characterized by a dose of masochism. Orlan 's case was hotly debated, and while some placed it in the space of art, others placed it on the border between art and non-art, even close to a mental illness. Thus, we can consider: "(…) Orlan's experiments speculate on the "auctorial" self (but also the personal "self"), encouraged by the fact that Orlan proposes, at the end of the transformations that his physical appearance will undergo, to consecrate this change through one of civil identity, which also implies a change (with proper documents) of his name. A pseudo-name that already indicates the synthetic, manufactured, artificial character of the being it names, will be replaced by another, consecrating, "with documents", the existence of the new conglomerate and guaranteeing the fact that this conglomerate is unitary, has an "identity".

Her experiments support the re-discussion of the problem of the portrait and especially of the self-portrait, not only as a representational problem, but as a place of projection, construction, reconfiguration of the self, as an effect of the literal remodeling of its appearance.” [2]

In 1994, at the Centre Pompidou she exhibited 41 portraits after her seventh surgery. Each of these is a diptych, showing, in chronological order, Orlan 's face immediately after the operation, swollen and scarred, followed by photographs recording the stages of convalescence, and in the lower register are portraits of Orlan , in which the painless integration of disparate features from the history of art results.

" Beyond all this, the ideological aspects that try to be placed under these more or less artistic manifestations, there is, in fact, no other substratum, that of the image that Orlan wants to show about herself. Everything that Orlan does is for money and for publicity. She is a product of the media and has transformed herself into a commercial aspect. All the elements of her performances such as photographs, videos and costumes are sold to collectors for high prices. She has also gone to the extremes of exhibitionism and has sold the fleshy liquid from her operations. She often appears in fashion stores and on talk shows, collecting money to be interviewed. All the money she earns from her work is used to pay her bills for her operations, but I don't feel that covering the costs is her objective." From this point of view, Orlan is simply adopting another way of entering the contemporary art market in a way that creates a status for her. In a market economy, artists aim for a return on their investments, that is, a progressive transformation of the expenses and the product of their labor.” [3]