He self-deprecatingly calls himself the "best-known unknown artist": Uwe Laysiepen alias Ulay (*1943). Radically Ulay brings together his own life and art. With his artistic concept of transformation, he constantly creates new identities: his preferred medium is photography; initially associated with the Polaroid company, it became an essential component of his artistic practice, the earliest results of which date back to 1970. The instant photograph, which has been superseded by the digital photograph, is for Ulay the material of his decades-long search for the representation of life. To this day, his body serves him as a research object on which various influences can be traced and read as if on a canvas. The SCHIRN is dedicating the first ever major survey exhibition to this exceptional artist. In addition to numerous individual actions in Performative Photography and Body Art, Ulay has also realized many projects with other artists or has allowed himself to be influenced by them: Through his friendship with Jürgen Klauke, Ulay discovered the problem of identity for himself artistically and founded performative photography; with his former muse Paula Françoise-Piso, he created photographic series in which he heightened the questioning of the self to the point of its dissolution; with his former partner Marina Abramović, he finally succeeded in expanding performance art, which for this genre is still one of the greatest influences ever. The exhibition at the SCHIRN comprehensively brings together Ulay's remarkable oeuvre. On view are new works and performances conceived by the artist especially for the exhibition, as well as numerous artworks he held back for years, which are now being shown publicly for the first time.
Text source and more information about this event: http://www.schirn.de
