Ulay

Ulay, 1972

Ulay (born November 30, 1943 in Solingen as Frank Uwe Laysiepen ; † March 2, 2020 in Ljubljana ) was an important representative of performance art in Germany in the 1970s.

Life

Ulay's body-related performances in the 1970s with his then partner Marina Abramović , from whom he separated in 1988 with the "Great Farewell Hike" on the Great Wall of China, are particularly well known . In 2010 he attended her permanent performance The Artist is Present at MoMA in New York, sued her in 2015 and won the lawsuit for copyright infringement in order to be reconciled in 2017

He attended the Cologne factory schools and lived and worked a. a. in Australia and China. Most recently he lived in Amsterdam and Ljubljana . The interweaving of relationships between body, space and society is decisive in all of his works.

Marina Abramović and Uwe Laysiepen 1978

In 1976 he stole the painting The Poor Poet by Carl Spitzweg from the Neue Nationalgalerie in the art campaign There is a criminal contact in art, which he then hung in the apartment of a Turkish guest worker family in Kreuzberg . After 30 hours he returned it to the Künstlerhaus Bethanien and turned himself in to the police. The action, which confronted the living conditions of the guest workers with the conventions of the established art business, was documented on video by Wilma Kottusch and Mike Steiner . Ulay was fined for theft . He did not pay the fine, but left Germany. After returning two years later, he was arrested to serve a replacement prison sentence, but was released after friends paid the fine.

Ulay took part in Documenta 7 in 1982 and in Documenta 8 in 1987 . From 1999 to 2004 he was professor for performance at the State University of Design in Karlsruhe .

Exhibitions

• 2016: Ulay Life-Sized , Schirn Kunsthalle , Frankfurt am Main.

Public collections

Australia

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney

Germany

• Erlangen Art Palace
• Kunsthalle zu Kiel of the Christian Albrechts University
• Museum Ludwig , Cologne

Finland

• Kiasma - Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki

France

• Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon

Netherlands

• Netherlands Media Art Institute - Time Based Arts, Amsterdam
• Van Abbemuseum , Eindhoven
• Museum het Domein, Sittard

Sweden

• The Wanas foundation, Knislinge

Spain

• ARTIUM Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz

United States

• The Progressive Art Collection, Mayfield Village (Ohio)
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA

Prizes and awards

• 1982: ars viva prize of the cultural group in the Association of German Industry , together with Marina Abramović
• 1984: San Sebastian Video Prize
• 1985: Lucano Video Prize
• 1986: Polaroid Video Prize

literature

• Maria Rus Bojan, Alessandro Cassin: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay . Valiz, Amsterdam 2014, ISBN 978-90-78088-72-1 .
• Samantha Krukowski: Performing History: Walking Along Ulay and Abramovic's The Lovers. Ph.D Dissertation, Department of Art and Art History University of Texas at Austin, 1999 ( introduction online ).

Web links

Commons : Ulay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ulay in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ulay in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Biography with references to his works
• Ulay visits the ZKM

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Video on YouTube
2. ↑ Ben Quinn: Marina Abramović ex-partner Ulay claims victory in case about joint works. In: theguardian.com. September 21, 2016, accessed on August 17, 2017 . 
3. ↑ detektor.fm: What will be important - Marina Abramovic and Ulay are reconciled - "At 70 you might be milder" - Culture -. In: detektor.fm. August 11, 2017. Retrieved August 17, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Till Briegleb: On the death of the artist Ulay - The everyday manner. In: sueddeutsche.de. March 2, 2020, accessed March 2, 2020 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} "I did not sell my skin". Interview by Carola Padtberg. Spiegel Online , October 13, 2016, accessed July 27, 2019
6. ↑ Video on YouTube
7. ↑ http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/werke/da-ist-eine-iminelle-beruehrung/
8. ↑ Marcus Woeller: Thomas Demand curates the exhibition on picture theft. In: welt.de . July 10, 2016, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
9. ^ Art theft as a work of art . SchirnMag, November 1, 2016, accessed on March 11, 2018
10. ↑ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/lösungen-von-der-neuen-nationalgalerie-auf-wiedersehen-altes-haus/11140316.html
11. ↑ http://kunstlich.blogspot.de/2016/07/herrlich-subversiver-kunstraub-berlin.html
12. ↑ The Unwägsamkeiten of existence in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung of 16 October 2016 S. R5
13. ↑ Kulturkreis.eu: Well-known ars viva award winners / 1982 Marina Abramovic / Uwe Laysiepen ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 13, 2015)