Ulay

Marina Abramović & Ulay: No Predicted End

Thirty years after their separation, performance artists Marina Abramović and Frank Uwe 'Ulay' Laysiepen (1943-2020) agree to meet, for the first time on camera, for a raw and honest conversation about their life, art and legacy.

How I Stole a Painting

The story of one of the most radical performances in art history told by German artist Ulay, who in 1976 decided to steal Hitler's favorite painting from Berlin's national museum and hang it in the home of a Turkish immigrant family. "This particular painting you could say was a German identity icon." In 1976 Ulay decided to steal the painting 'Der arme Poet' (The Poor Poet) (1839) by Carl Spitzweg, which was said to be Hitler's favorite painting. By stealing the painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin, Ulay broke away from what he had done previously, aiming "to give a strong signal about what I was about as an artist at the time."

The story of Marina Abramovic and Ulay

Legendary couple in performance art – Marina Abramović and Ulay – lived together for 12 years and made pioneering work as a duo. In this extraordinary double interview the artists looks back on their relationship – from their first meeting in 1975 until now.

Ulay

Ulay is a conceptual artist whose photography pushed boundaries, and whose love affair with Marina Abramovic produced some of the best pieces of performance art. Diagnosed with cancer shortly after agreeing to film the documentary, Ulay's illness informs Project Cancer, which is part-retrospective, part-visual document of the year he believed could be the last of his extraordinary life.

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The Way Between Two Points

El camino entre dos puntos (The way between two points) investigates Patagonia’s tainted nature. Here, where throughout the 20th century ever enhanced methods of oil recovery, have transformed an amorphous, ambivalent and hardly populated landscape into an uncanny site of man’s supposed mastery of nature, the film traces the ways of a man, who wanders the scenes aimlessly, bound by his own implication in the menacing mechanics of oil production but drawn physically to their coevally proceeding erasure by the rough and untamed nature of this seemingly self-subsisting land.

Balkan Baroque

Balkan Baroque is a real and imaginary biography of the Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Rather than a mechanical reproduction of the artist's work, the film tries to create a new reality by translating the performances into cinematographic images that intensify the fictional context of the film. Abramovic plays herself, but ,appearing in multiple forms, blurs her own identity. Memories and fantasies intermingle with day to day rituals. The chronological narrative often breaks to reflect the interior voyage of the protagonist from the present to the past and back to the present. The result is a visually impressive film. Balkan Baroque had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 1999.

Talking about Similarity

'Talking about Similarity' took place in Amsterdam, on November 30th, 1976. The performance, which lasted ca. 45 minutes, contains two parts that are very different in form, but content-wise form a whole. Ulay begins, Abramovic takes over. This makes 'Talking about Similarity' the only performance in their oeuvre in which they are not both performing at the same time.

The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink

In the twilight years of the Cultural Revolution, a Chinese filmmaker slowly becoming blind tours the country screening her last film to peasants. In it, the woman imagines two "alien" lovers walking from end-to-end along the Great Wall to join each other in the middle, one last time. This documentary is an adaptation of Ulay and Marina Abramovic's final collaborative project, the 1988 performance "The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk."

Rest Energy

Ulay and Abramovic draw a large bow and arrow, one holding each side. The arrowhead is pointing at Abramovic's heart. The slightest movement could be fatal. Microphones on their clothes pick up their quickening heart beats and Ulay's irregular breathing

AAA-AAA

The video tape shows the half-length portraits of Abramović and her husband Ulay standing opposite each other, looking at each other and producing a long sound with open mouths.

Incision

Ulay is fixed to a wall by a fixed rubber cord, while Marina stands at the limit of Ulay's expansion.

Relation in Time

Marina Abramovic's performance 'Relation in time', with her long time partner Ulay. "We are sitting back to back, tied together by our hair, without any movement for 16 hours. Then the audience came in. We continued sitting for one hour."

Breathing In/Breathing Out

For this performance the two artists blocked their nostrils with cigarette filters and pressed their mouths together, so that one couldn’t inhale anything else but the exhalation of the other. As the carbon dioxide filled their lungs, they began to sweat, move vehemently and wear themselves out; the viewers could sense their agony through the projected sound of breathing, which was augmented via microphones attached to their chests. It took them 19 minutes in the first performance and 15 in the second to consume all the oxygen in that one breath and reach the verge of passing out.

Imponderabilia

"Naked we stand opposite each other in the museum entrance. The public entering the museum has to turn sideways to move through the limited space between us. Everyone wanting to get past has to choose which one of us to face" – Marina Abramovich

Expansion in Space

In 'Expansion in Space' (1977, Dokumenta 6, Kassel), Ulay and Abramovic do not collide with each other, as they did in Relation in Space (1976), but with two free-standing pillars twice their individual body weight. Their goal is to make the pillars move by means of their naked bodies, and in this way to expand the space of action

Documentazione Della Settimana Internazionale Della Performance

“Before the eyes of all, at least of those present, the naked and direct exhibitions of the body take place with all its extensions; but the naked eye of the spectators who circle is promptly doubled by the many mechanical or electronic eyes of the photographic equipment and of the 'cameras' which, with their clicks and their tenacious buzzing, form the background” Renato Barilli

Relation in Movement

Marina: we even use our car in the performance, in '77, for the Paris Biennale in the front of the museum we made this piece called Relation In Movement, which Ulay is driving the car and I had the megaphone out of the window, and I would say the numbers of the circle as we was passing, because it was just going in a circle, on and on and on. The idea was the car collapsed or we collapsed. and after 16 hours, the motor burned out and created this minimal trace on the marble as a black circle. For us each circle was a kind of imaginary year.

Balance Proof

Ulay and Abramović are standing holding a double-sided mirror between their bodies.

Light/Dark

Ulay and Abramović take turns hitting each other in the face, gradually increasing speed and intensity with each blow. This performance is best known for being the inspiration for New Order's "True Faith" music video.

Relation in Space

In the first 58 minute Performance, Relation in Space, which took place in July 1976 at the Biennale in Venice, Abramovic/Ulay, both naked, walk towards each other from opposite ends of a room, touching as they pass each other, and then they repeat the movement while their bodies collide and one of them (Marina) falls over under the impact, until they are both exhausted. A statically mounted video camera simultaneously filmed the touching of the bodies in the middle of the room.

There Is a Criminal Touch to Art

A documentation of the live Action Ulay performed in Berlin in 1976. It shows step by step his arranged "art theft" of Carl Spitzweg's painting "The Poor Poet" from the Neue Nationalgalerie and his reception in commentaries and reactions from the press.

The Pink Biennal

Television special of five episodes directed by Alfredo Di Laura dedicated to the exhibition "Attivo. Performance e Dibattiti" curated by Tommaso Trini.