SAINT-OUEN-L'AUMONE.- Orlan's exhibition at the abbey focuses on two of the artist's favorite modes of expression: video and above all sculpture, which the problems posed by the work's relationship to the venue, crucial in the abbey's highly singular the first person. Working in the heritage, formerly religious setting of the abbey, Orlan has space that gives her the opportunity to explore in depth. With the powerful questions they raise, the works especially produced for the exhibition demonstrate in various forms her direct, joyful and subversive way of creating art in created a project that mingles time periods, hybridizes appearances and unites differences.
In the barn, a limousine, luxury item and symbol of marriage, made in front of a video projection entitled Orlan remix: Romain Gary, Costa-Gavras, Deleuze and Guattari. This monumental installation with its strange poetry, a criticism of standardized social representations that emphasizes the absurdity of racism, extols the evidence of the social mix.
In the parlor, Sculpting Brushes: luminous prototype no. 1, is the first sculpture in a series entitled Bump Load. Orlan lends her features to this mutant being, simultaneously futuristic, archaic, ethnic and techno-cyber, whose illuminated parts react to the presence of visitors. The result of considerable research and innovative work, Sculpting Brushes: luminous prototype no. 1 is actually an attempt to re-appropriate the use of technology, too often dehumanizing, in favor of an unshackled imagination: that of our global society.
In the Gothic decor of the nuns' hall, three robes in resin, created by Orlan, continue the tradition of sculpting folds with their Baroque-style drapes. A remix of historical works, these three sculptures their difference being the aspect of their surfaces raise the question of copying and cloning, of the difference and the repetition. Enactments of the hyper-luxurious, they link epochs and the permanence of representations: the absent body is simultaneously the Virgin, the artist, and the model who performs in a fashion show.
At the end of course, in ancient latrines, AAKA, artistic double of Orlan, denounces through a new installation the omnipresence of the sport and the religion become intrusive in the media and the everyday life.
Orlan is an artist who has entered the history of art, and is recognized the world over. She is active in photography, video, sculpture, installations, performance, etc. She questions in her work the contemporary political, religious or social pressures brought to bear on individuals, particularly women.