In a contemporary society where surfaces matter, skin, the largest organ on the body, has been altered throughout time to fit multiple aesthetics. ORLAN herself has always been influenced by the idea of skin and the canvas it gives an artist. Julie Clark suggests ORLAN is heavily influenced by psychoanalyst Eugine Lemoine-Leccioni, who notes ‘the skin is deceptive’ (1996). This is definitely a theme that can be seen throughout ORLAN’S works. Man has always looked for ways to alter their appearance, as Margot Mifflin1 critiques that the skin is “the scrim on which we project our greatest fantasies and deepest fears about our bodies’ (2013). Our bodies are like a piece of parchment, blank and easy to change, but it is not so easy to erase those changes. In this critical report, I will discuss how far a person goes to achieve their vision of outer beauty. This person is ORLAN.
Many of the earliest forms of body modification included crude body piercings, tattoos and scarification. Over time, this has moved to other forms of altering one’s body, such as extreme methods of plastic surgery and semi-permanent makeup. The body has become a ‘vehicle of pleasure and self expression’ (Featherstone, 1989). ORLAN ensures this is demonstrated in her work, as she gains pleasure from changing her body and expressing it in a nonconforming way to what is socially acceptable. I will deeply criticise ORLAN’S works and discuss the extent to which ORLAN is considered ‘Feminist, Anti-feminist, Neo-feminst, Post-Feminist and Alter Feminist’ (ORLAN, 2009). ORLAN is best known for her nine operations, ‘The Reincarnation of St ORLAN’. The performances were purposely designed to mirror Renaissance anatomy theatres’ The seventh being filmed and shown on CNN, which aroused many controversies towards her feminist objective and the way she creates artwork. I do not wish to reproduce all ORLAN’S artwork, but to merely offer a feminist perspective on it. ORLAN’S “cosmetic surgery can be a way to make a self-portrait, but the one [she wants], and that [she designs]…which [is]…out of the ordinary” (ORLAN, 2019). This is a notation I will be discussing, as ORLAN’s engagement with feminism, and its failure in France during the eighties and nineties, seems to be her own psychoanalysis of it.
*Part of the 2021-2022 Fine Art cohort
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