ORLAN, always written in capital letters, is a contemporary artist and feminist with an international reputation. Her highly publicised performances address contemporary issues by examining social phenomena with a critical eye. As an artist she is not bound by any mode of expression, technique or technology, old or new. ORLAN explores the status of the body, particularly that of women, questioning all traditional, political, social, and religious pressures. She fights in her life and work to break down the barriers between genders, sexes, and artistic practices.
She returns to London and to the Courtauld Institute, interrupting her international trajectory of exhibitions, ranging from Saint-Etienne in France (her home town), Art Paris, Art Brussels, MUDEC photo, Milan and Freijo Gallery, Madrid to Osaka, Japan or POMA Museum, Pohang in Korea
Sarah Wilson is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Courtauld. She introduced performance art studies to the Courtauld curriculum, and produced texts on ORLAN in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2010. Co-curator of Paris, Capital of the Arts, 1900-1968 (Royal Academy London, 2002), she published The Visual World of French Theory, vol. 1, Figurations in 2010 (French, 2018), and Picasso, Marx and socialist realism in France, 2013. She won the international AICA Critics prize in 2015.
Organised by Professor Sarah Wilson, The Courtauld.
