Orlan

During the confinement, in 2020, ORLAN wrote her autobiography published by Gallimard.

ORLAN further expands the frontiers of contemporary art by using biotechnology to create “Harlequin’s Coat” in 2007, made from the artist's own cells and cells of human and animal origin in Perth, Australia in Symbiotico's laboratory.

In 2018, ORLAN creates a robot in her own image, "ORLANoïde", equipped with collective and social artificial intelligence that speaks with her voice by reading texts from a text generator: presented at the Grand Palais, for the exhibition "Artists and Robots", the robot is also part of a performance entitled "Electronic and verbal striptease" and also benefits from a motion generator. It is a work in Progress, currently the developers of the Art and science gallery in Dublin are developing other capacities.

In June 2013, she filed a complaint against Lady Gaga. For ORLAN, the American star, in the album Born This Way released in 2011 is inspired by the artist without quoting her. The beginning of the video clip of the homonymous song shows Lady Gaga with implants similar to those of ORLAN and the face of Lady Gaga beheaded recalls the work Woman with head created in 1996. Her lawyer is asking for a compensation of 31.7 million dollars. The hearing was set for July 7, 2016 at the Tribunal de la Grande Instance de Paris. A first verdict was announced against ORLAN but the artist decided to appeal. In May 2018, the Court of Appeal of Paris rejected ORLAN by confirming the absence of parasitic nature of the video clip.

It receives the Reputation on line Prize (Grand Prix de l'e-réputation) in 2013, organized by the art critic Alexia Guggemos, Plastic Arts category, which rewards the most popular personalities on the Internet alongside Phillipe Starck for design and Yann Arthus-Bertrand for photography.

In 2001, ORLAN orchestrated a series of filmic posters, "Le Plan du Film," with various artists and writers. She collaborated in 2008 with the SymbioticA laboratory in Australia, resulting in the bio-art installation "The Harlequin's Coat."Part of ORLAN's on-going work includes "Suture/Hybridize/Recycle," a generative and collaborative series of clothing made from ORLAN's wardrobe and focusing on suture: the deconstruction of past clothing reconstructed into new clothing that highlights the sutures.

In 1999, ORLAN was appointed to teach at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Paris-Cergy, France.

Since 1998, ORLAN has been creating a digital photographic series titled "Self-Hybridizations" where her face merges with past facial representations (masks, sculptures, paintings) of non-western civilizations. So far, three have been completed: Pre-Columbian, Native American and African.

In New York, 1993, ORLAN had surgery on her brows. This consisted of implants on her forehead, which are analogous to horns.

ORLAN (born Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte, later reborn as ORLAN) is a French contemporary artist best known for her work with plastic surgery in the early to mid-1990s. ORLAN is known as a pioneer of carnal art, a form of self-portraiture that utilizes body modification to distort one's appearance. She adopted the pseudonym "ORLAN" in 1971, and capitalises each letter because, as ORLAN states, she has 'no desire to step back into rank.' She lives and works in Paris.

She is a director, known for La madone au minitel (1987), Opération réussie n.

In 1978, ORLAN founded the International Symposium of Performance in Lyon where she also explored the use of new technologies in the arts. In 1982, with Frederic Develay, she created the first online contemporary art creation magazine, Art-Acces-Revue, on Minitel. This magazine invites international artists working in situ and/or with conceptual issues to create original works specially designed on Minitel (Bernar Venet, Vera Molnar, Ben, Francois Morellet, Daniel Buren...). This database was represented in the exhibition Les immateriaux by Jean-Francois Lyotard.

During the 1977 FIAC International Contemporary Art Fair in Paris, ORLAN executed the controversial performance piece The Artist's Kiss (Le baiser de l'artiste). Outside the Grand Palais in Paris, a life-size photo of her torso was turned into a slot machine. Spectators could see the coin they inserted into the torso descend down into a groin before being awarded a kiss from the artist.

In 1972, ORLAN created Documentary Study: The Head of Medusa, in which she displayed her sexual organs during menstruation under a magnifying glass. The installation was organized in Aachen, Germany on occasion of an International Symposium of Performance Art at the Ludwig Forum for International art. The piece's title was derived from the statement by Sigmund Freud that "at the sight of the vulva, even the devil runs away," which he articulated in his short, posthumously-published essay entitled "Medusa's Head."

Between 1967 and 1975, ORLAN produced a body of work entitled Tableaux Vivants. She based these on the works of Baroque artists such as El Greco and Gericault. She used prison inmates as models, wore exaggerated faux-Baroque costumes, and drew inspiration from Caravaggesque stereotypes. In 1971, ORLAN "baptized herself" Sainte-ORLAN, adorning herself with billowing black vinyl and white leatherette. Color photographs of Saint ORLAN were later incorporated into photo-collages, videos, and films tracing a fictive hagiography.

In 1965, ORLAN produced MesuRages, in which she used her own body as a measuring instrument. With her "ORLAN-body" as the unit of measurement, she evaluated how many people could fit within a given architectural space. This was the first time she utilized her trousseau in a performance piece. ORLAN repurposed her trousseau in several later projects.

ORLAN's career as a performance artist began in 1964, when she performed Marches au ralenti (Slow motion walks) in her hometown of Saint-Étienne. During these performances, she would walk as slowly as possible between two central parts of the city.

Orlan was born on May 30, 1947 in Saint-Étienne, Loire, France.