Orlan

Reel 15 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series.

A documentary covering the rebirth of St.Orlan from 1991 through most of the decade.

Performance artist ORLAN undergoes one in a series of surgeries that would give her “the chin of Sandro Botticelli’s Venus in The Birth of Venus, the nose of Francois Pascal Simon Gerard’s Psyche in Le premier baisser de l’amour a Psyche, the eyes of Diana in the sculpture Diane chasseresse, the lips of Gustave Moreau’s Europa in L’enlevement d’Europe and the brow of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa to draw attention to received Western notions of beauty and femininity.

A documentary edited from ORLAN's seventh surgery in the The Reincarnation of Sainte-ORLAN series which aired live, vis satellite from New York in 1993.

Inverting the form, style and time frame of commercial television advertising, Logue has produced a unique series of dynamic video portraits of avant-garde artists, writers, musicians and performers. In 30 Second Spots: New York, which Logue terms "commercials for artists," each of the succinct vignettes conveys the artistic essence of her subject with clarity, wit, and an elegant economy of means. John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Spalding Gray and Steve Reich are among the artists who are captured here with concise drama. Each subject performs in close-up before a stationary camera.

Post modern and baroque as hell... good and bad taste without synthesis... semblance and false pretense... nods to the history of art... sentimental and cultural clichés: serious, funny, grotesque...