Provocative Performance Artist Ulay dies aged 76
The conceptual artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen, known as Ulay, was the historical partner of the Serbian artist Marina Abramović, with whom he performed 14 “relation works”, joint performances where they became a single artistic entity. In April 1988, the two commemorated the end of their relationship with a final work together, each started walking from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, Ulay in the Gobi desert and Abramović by the Yellow Sea. After walking more than 1,500 miles each, they met in the middle and, without speaking, bade each other farewell.
Ulay first found fame as an artist after moving to Amsterdam and becoming a photographer for Polaroid, experimenting with the film and cameras the company gave him and after splitting from Abramović, he returned to the Polaroid, in the early 90s experimenting with a giant camera that produced “Polagram” images taller than the artist himself.
In 2010, he surprised Abramović by taking a seat opposite her during her durational performance piece “The Artist is Present” at MoMA in New York, after the two had not spoken for decades. The following year Ulay was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. Two years later the documentary “Project Cancer: Ulay’s Journal from November to November” was released.
Ulay’s gallery, Richard Saltoun, confirmed Ulay’s death with the statement: “Ulay was the freest of spirits – a pioneer and provocateur with a radically and historically unique oeuvre, operating at the intersection of photography and the conceptually oriented approaches of performance and body art. His passing leaves a momentous gap in the world – one that will not be so easily replaced.” Ulay’s most recently exhibition at the gallery was curated by Birte Kleemann in early 2019, and focused on the artist’s photography and his long-standing commitment to exploring and expanding the medium. Starting with early works from the 1970s, the exhibition included performative photography, featuring new works exhibited to the public for the first time, as well as a film of one of his most important actions: Irritation – There is a Criminal Touch to Art (1976).
Ulay’s upcoming retrospective exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, that he has been so much looking forward to and has already been working on, will be on view at the museum from November 2020 on. It will be the first exhibition to be mounted by Rein Wolfs, who joined the museum as Director in December.
