Ulay
Acting
Biography
Ulay, born Frank Uwe Laysiepen, 1943 is a German artist, actor, and photographer, now based in Amsterdam, Holland, and Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ulay received international recognition for his work as a photographer, mainly in Polaroid, from the late 1960s, and later as a performance artist, including his collaborative performances with Marina Abramovic from 1976 to 1988.
Born: November 30, 1943
Place of Birth: Solingen, Germany
Known For
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.
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
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Filmography
as Self - Artist
as The artist
as Himself
as Self
as himself
as Himself
as Self
as himself
as self
as Ulay
as himself
as himself
as Himself
as Self