Ulay

Real name Frank Uwe Laysiepen, born in Solingen, Germany, he is an important performance artist of the late 60s and the 70s.

From the 1976 Ulay and Marina Abramovic start to co-operate as artists and they live together.

On 1989 the two artist decided to end their relationship and to mark this with a performance, which became the legendary endpoint of their collaboration.

After years of negotiations with the Chinese authorities, the artists got the permission to carry out 'The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk', in which they started to walk from different ends of the Chinese Wall in order to meet in the middle and say good-bye to each other. 'The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk' has to be considered the perfect end of the common oeuvre.

In their work gender specific roles, the opposing models of male and female body are being questioned in public up to its physical and psychic limits. The borderline between art and life seems to be extremely thin, especially considering how often a real danger becomes part of the artistic concept. Marina Abramovic and Ulay irritate profoundly the visitors of a performance when they beat each other until exhaustion or physically clash. The duration of time stretches endlessly so that the shere physical impact is extreme. The performances rely on radical introspection and artistic exhibition at the same time, which only documents their long symbiotic relationship as a couple.