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...non-artistic and judged as 'poor' and ephemeral" (1) (Wagner 9). On the other hand, the use of the body exceeds beyond these experiments with new materials and suggests questions which evolve from the inseparableness of the body in and out of an artistic context. One cannot limit the "body as material" to its respective "use," for there remains a part which stubbornly resists being used in the way paint, marble, soil or felt are manipulated in the artistic process. Particularly in body art, aesthetic and extra-aesthetic discourses are deeply intertwined. This becomes obvious in the more overt aesthetic stratums of medical discourse interested in the visual representation of the human body's interior by artists and anatomists. (2)
One of the most spectacular actions that involve the human body in an artistic context is staged by the French performance artist Orlan. Since the beginning of the 1990s she has undergone cosmetic surgery several times, which has turned her face into a physiognomic combination of Botticelli's Venus, the Mona Lisa and other female figures of art history. Or, as she describes it: "I have always regarded my female body, my artist's body as a particularly suitable material for the production of my work" (italics mine) (Sobieszek 276). Her work points to the fact that there is a tradition of using the female body to transport certain meanings that are different from those that can be articulated by the male body. In fact, feminist performance artists made extensive use of this difference. By integrating their own bodies in a performance they were able to fuse several positions traditionally split in the artistic process: the artist, the material, and the traditional female model. Extensive analysis has been conducted on how these interchanges of discrete subject- and object-positions can be understood as a deconstructive move (Jappe; Jones; Mueller; Vergine).
In this essay I will read Orlan's performance "Omnipresence" in the context of this history of feminist and performance art, in particular with regard to the performances of Yves Klein and Gina Pane. I will reconsider some of their work in order to show how it is exemplary of the artistic investments in the connection of body and pain, and to provide a theoretical and historical framework for Orlan's violation of her own body. In addition, I want to show in what ways the legibility of Orlan's work is shaped by non-artistic discourses of the body or "body-traditions," upon which "Omnipresence" is capable of calling. It is necessary to dissect these traditions, whether semantic or visual, in order to gain knowledge of the functions that the body in Orlan's artistic practice acquires.
Body Authenticity and Matters of Pain: Yves Klein's "Fire Paintings" and Gina Pane's "Norriture, actualites televisees, feu"
In the early 1960s, Yves Klein began to experiment with fire. Working at the "Centre d'essais de gaz de France" near Paris, he was able to take advantage of the facilities of this company while at the same time demonstrating his intense interest in blending art and technological knowledge. In 1961, Klein was working on a series of "Fire paintings" in which he combined principles of his well-known "Anthropometries" with his interest in fire (Fig. 1). This is documented by the writings of Klein, as evident in "Le manifeste de l'hotel Chelsea" of 1961 and his interest in the French philosopher and scientist Gaston Bachelard. In Bachelard's text "Psychoanalys du feu," Klein found ample reference to a philosophical tradition that associates fire with "life" and "death," and most importantly, ascribes to it the potential to transform materiality into immateriality (Stich 223-231). Klein's interest in the alchemistic symbology of fire further added to his fascination with fire in the artistic process. As in the series of the "Anthropometries" in the "Fire Paintings," Klein was working with two naked models. While in the "Anthropometries" Klein applied paint on the model's bodies and preserved their imprints on the canvas, in the "Fire Paintings" he wet the canvas following the bodies outline (Fig. 2). Subsequently, Klein treated the canvas with a flame-thrower on which the body imprints remained visible, because the moistened parts of the canvas were less vulnerable to the fire.
[FIGURES 1-2 OMITTED]
Equally important as the actual work itself (the burned canvas) are the many photographs that were taken during Klein's performance. Klein planned those shots meticulously and gave precise directions, including the idea to let his friend Alex Costa wear full fire-fighter gear, Klein himself was wearing a three-piece-suit as he had already done during earlier performances, thereby emphasizing the different roles of the people involved. The suit as the bourgeois icon of respectability, contrasted with the technical equipment that Klein needed to operate during the performance. His friend Costa, who held a water hose directed at the canvas, created the impression of a dangerous situation and contributed to the "theatrical aura" of the piece (Stich 226). Thirdly, the women involved allowed Klein to work with "living brushes"--a term he had coined to refer to his female models in the series "Anthorpometries"--and thereby exert control of a living artistic material.
Klein's "Fire Paintings" were quickly associated with contemporary experiences of violence and destruction. World War II and Hiroshima both generated ample traumatic knowledge about what fire could do to a body. Klein himself referred to "the ashes of Hiroshima blown by the wind" (i.e., the traces of ashes of the burned bodies) to describe his works with fire...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
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