wanderlust

Undeniably Ulay: “My Atelier Is The Street”

The tiny, tasteful theatre at VeneKlasen Werner was packed—coats intertwined, vine-like around every structure upon which one might sit or stand near as guests milled around the gallery space sipping beer from the gallery tap and ogling the art. As 5:15 rolled around, we surged into our well-guarded seats and edged to the front of them to witness the tall, lanky gentleman in tweedish suit hand off a single flower to the gallerina at his right and settle into a leather chair for the duration. Ulay had arrived. The artist was present. 

 

Beginnings and Endings

 

I was introduced to Ulay’s work years back, in graduate school, by a professor who never took off her sunglasses and lauded the audacious performance art that brought Marina Abramovi? and her partner Ulay to prominence in the late 70s and early 80s. Since going their separate ways during a final performance piece in which both performers, lovers, and partners walked 2000 kilometers of the Great Wall of China until they met in the middle of the wall and said goodbye, Marina Abromovic’s star has been on the rise. With a retrospective at MOMA, an HBO documentary, a performance at LACMA, and an appearance with James Franco at The Metropolitan Costume Institute, Abromovic has not shied away from the spotlight—but what about Ulay, her longtime performance partner and lover? Many of the performances recreated at Abromovic’s rock-star retrospectives came from the repertory of Marina and Ulay, many of the works so legendary in the cannon of performance art were originated by this quiet soul sitting on the dais and surrounded by spectators eager to hear his story.

 

The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

 

Quietly, humbly, eagerly, and with candor, Ulay began by speaking about his first few months of life in a bomb shelter in Solingen, Germany. With the caveat that being born in a bomb shelter is no guarantee of an artistic future, Ulay described how his mother held his mouth open as the bombs fell to prevent his lungs from imploding. In later years, he spent his days wandering the ruins of the shelled city, noting how nature had overtaken the warped steel and demolished walls. By age 6, he could distinguish between iron, aluminum, and copper, and made pocket money selling each for scrap. 

 

While spinning a tale of a more or less happy childhood, when Ulay begins to describe the ravages of the post-war landscape and the women tasked with cleaning up the mess, he begins with “you have no idea…you cannot understand what these women have gone through.” Goosebumps emerge, and it becomes clear that much of the grief, reflection and search for identity that drive his work are rooted in these early experiences.

 

| Continued on Page 2 |

Be the first to write a comment.

Your feedback