Ulay

(German, 1943–2020)

Ulay was a German performance artist known for his ambitious conceptual works and his collaborations with his former partner, renowned performance artist Marina Ambramovic. Ulay’s work explored the body, gender, and the intersection between performance and photography. “I don’t have the patience to try to produce a superlative image,” the artist said of his practice. “I believe that using a Polaroid is the closest I can get between my ideas and the reality, because it is instant: there is 60 to 90 seconds between the act and the image.” Born Frank Uwe Laysiepen on November 30, 1943 in Solingenm, Germany, he began his artistic career in working for various companies making photographs of industrial factories. In the early 1970s, he moved to Amsterdam where he developed an interest in performance art. There, he met Ambramovic and the two artists created collaborative works, such as AAA-AAA (1978), for nearly a decade before they separated. His works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Stedejlik Museum in Amsterdam, among others. Ulay passed away on March 2, 2020 at the age of 76 in his adopted hometown of Lljubljana, Slovenia.