Erin Elizabeth Eman

A Pound of Flesh

Throughout time, artists have always had a medium of choice. For some it was oil, for

others clay, and still others charcoal. In the case of Orlan (who does not use her real name) her

medium of choice is her own body. Her tool is plastic surgery. This particular artistic endeavor

began in the early 1970’s and continues today. Since 1990, she has undergone a series of plastic

surgical operations to transform herself into a new being -- modeled on Venus, Diana, Europa,

Psyche and Mona Lisa. She considers her body “readymade” and refers to her work as “Carnal

Art”.

With her art, Orlan is attempting to create beauty -- but not really. I believe what she is

really trying to do is prove that the search for beauty is unattainable. This surgical montage

brings to mind the practices of the ancient Greek artist, Zeusix, and Leonardo da Vinci, in which

the artists extracted the most ideal features of several different models and morphed them into

one. (Rose, 125) Orlan has followed their lead, but has taken these methods to an entirely

different level.

For the decade that she has been surgically molding her face through the use of plastic

surgery, becoming beautiful has not been her intent. She looks at her work as a by-product of

our technically and medically advanced culture. I think Orlan’s art is intensely focused on what

women will go through to achieve what they – and society – consider beautiful. Drastic

measures are taken to produce a contemporary, “plastic” beauty that gives a Stepford-wife-

quality to the women who are searching for the elusive “perfect” beauty. It goes against the

concept of accepting one’s self.

Orlan wants to show how horrifying the process is by showing us the actual surgery.

She goes under the knife with only a local anesthetic. The procedures are quite graphic. The
Erin Elizabeth Eman
A Pound of Flesh
operating rooms become Orlan’s studio; the scalpels her brushes, her bodily fluids the paint. In

the end, not only is her face the finished work of art, but also drawings she creates with her blood

and sculptures encased with her flesh.

Obviously, Orlan’s work is nothing, if not controversial. “Carnal Art” celebrates how

technically and medically advanced our culture has become. With the help of technology (and

money) we can physically become whatever we want. Her art illustrates the altering and

reconfiguring that can be accomplished through plastic surgery. One of her intentions stems

from her feminist ideals. She has taken seven characteristics from the facial structures of icons

of feminine beauty, as proclaimed by male artists throughout history, and morphed her face to

match them. These include Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa’s forehead and the chin of

Boticelli’s Venus. I think what Orlan is trying to say is that while the Mona Lisa’s forehead is

beautiful on her; it may not be beautiful in combination with another’s eyes or this one’s nose.

Our faces are put together like a puzzle and if you remove pieces and replace them, you will lose

the soul of the person behind the face.

Orlan’s work is considered many things – beautiful, rejuvenating, gruesome, and

extreme. She is illustrating how ridiculous ideal beauty would actually look if all the “beautiful”

pieces were put together. Orlan herself states: “My work is not a stand against cosmetic

surgery, but against the standards of beauty, against the dictates of a dominant ideology that

impresses itself more and more on feminine flesh” (O’Bryan, no page) She is attempting to draw

attention to the man-made paradigm of beauty. One may ask the question: Is it art? Barbara

Rose, a well-known critic and author, says it is. She believes there are two essential criteria for

distinguishing art from non-art -- intentionality and transformation. These are unarguably
Erin Elizabeth Eman
A Pound of Flesh
present in all of Orlan’s work. By creating highly structured images in photographs, videos, and

of course, on her own body, she has fulfilled these criteria. (Rose, 87) Personally, I think that

money and publicity also figure into the “picture”. Philosophically, I believe the message in her

art to simply be that we all have different criteria for what we believe to be beautiful. How far

we are willing to go in order to achieve it is another issue.

Erin Elizabeth Eman
A Pound of Flesh

References

O'Bryan, J. (1997, Winter). Saint Orlan faces reincarnation. Art Journal, , p. 50.

O'Bryan, J. (2005). Carnal art: Orlan's refacing. USA: University of Minnesota Press.

Rose, B. B. (1993, February). Is it art? Orlan and the transgressive act. Art in America, pp. 82-87,

125.