Ulay’s photographic approach was becoming increasingly performative. It resulted in a series of five Fototot (“photo-death”) performances in 1975/76, which questioned the idea of the audience and showed the transient, ever-changing nature of photographic identity, even more so: “I wanted to demonstratively bury photography”.[5] Later, performative tendencies within the medium of photography were transformed entirely into the medium of performance. ULAY’s previous solo work before the collaboration period with Abramović was the today iconic action in 14 predetermined steps, Irritation – There Is a Criminal Touch to Art (1976) that took place in Berlin, a city, towards which Ulay always had “conflictual” feelings (as well as to Germany). “In many ways, I tried to de-Germanize myself, but each time I have been in Berlin, I have felt the weight of its history – a tragic history – very heavily. And yes, working there has always had a very particular meaning for me”.[6] ULAY stole the renowned Carl Spitzweg’s painting “The Poor Poet” from the Neue National Galerie in Berlin and relocated it to Kreuzberg, hanging it on the wall in a Turkish family’s living room. The carefully planned action developed from “an urge to act”, to respond to the current (social / political / ethnic / also artistic) situation in the city. [7] 

From 1976 to 1988, Ulay collaborated with former partner Marina Abramović. Their 12-year relationship was turbulent and fraught, but it was one of the most productive and celebrated artistic partnerships of the 20th century. Together, they broke new ground with their pioneering performance art, propelling each other into new, evermore extreme and unexplored realms of emotional discomfort and physical endurance; testing the capabilities of the body and the spirit, questioning perceived masculine and feminine traits. Living and working together, they committed to each other, as expressed in the Relation Work’s “Art Vital” manifesto: “Art Vital: No fixed living place, permanent movement, direct contact, local relation, self-selection, passing limitations, taking risks, mobile energy”. Through their performances, they became indisputable icons of performance art. 

After breaking with Abramović, Ulay focused on photography, addressing the position of the marginalized individual in contemporary society (series Can’t Beat the Feeling – Long Playing Record, 1992 including a series of portraits of New York Afro-American judges and homeless; Aboriginal Afterimages, 1997; Luxembourg Portraits II, 1997) and re-examining the problem of nationalism and its symbols (Berlin Afterimages, 1994–1995). Nevertheless, although he was working primarily in photography, he remained connected to the question of the “performative,” which resulted in his constant “provocation” of audiences through the realization of numerous collaborative projects, performances, workshops, and lecture-performances (among others, Lichaamstaal, a special project for the Boumanhuis Detoxification Center, Dordrecht, NL, 1998; A Monument for the Future, 2000; Portraits of Ethnics, Amsterdam, NL, 2000; 7 in a Boat, Sakushima Island, JAP, 2000; I am Other. The Delusion: An Event About Art and Psychiatry, Vincent Van Gogh Psychiatric Institute, Venray, NL, 2002; WE Emerge, realized at AoRTA Art Centre, Chișinău, Moldova, 2004). In recent years, Ulay has been mostly engaged in projects and artistic initiatives that raise awareness and enhance understanding and appreciation of – and respect for – water (WATERTOALL, 2004; Waterfonie, 2009; Whose Water Is It?, 2012; Sweet Water Salt Water, 2012; Water Cards, 2012 – ongoing; ). Comparing Ulay’s photography works with a strong social agenda with recent projects on the subject of water revels the issue of the image processor the elusiveness of the images, which Ulay ‘reduces exclusively’ to the process.[8] “To infuse a different understanding of the conditio humana and the humanitarian project, which, to me, was always very important. If one wants to bring change to society and art, then one should use different tools and aim also in the direction of our social fabric.” [9]

After four decades of living and working in Amsterdam, and undertaking several long-term artistic projects in India, Australia, and China, and a professorship of Performance and New Media Art at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe in Germany, Ulay spent the last years of his life with his wife, family and friends, based in Ljubljana and between Ljubljana and Amsterdam. 

[1] More: Maria Rus Bojan, “Breaking the Norms: Poetics of Provocation”, in: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay (by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin, ed. Astrid Vorstermans), Valiz Foundation, Amsterdam 2014. 

[2] Ulay in an interview with Dominic Johnson, Art Monthly, January 2019.

[3] Ulay in an Interview with Alessandro Cassin, “Early Works: Ephermal, Intimate Actions, with No Audience, Arrested in Time through the Polaroid”, in: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay (by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin, ed. Astrid Vorstermans), Valiz Foundation, Amsterdam 2014. 

[4] Frits Gierstberg, “Ulay's Second Skin”, in: What is This thing called Polaroid? (by Frits Gierstberg and Katrin Pietsch), Nederlands Fotomuseum / Valiz Foundation, Rotterdam, 2016. 

[5] Ulay in an Interview with Alessandro Cassin, “Taking Authority Away From Photography”, in: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay (by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin, ed. Astrid Vorstermans), Valiz Foundation, Amsterdam 2014.

[6] Ulay in an Interview with Alessandro Cassin, “Berlin: There is a Criminal Touch to Art”, in: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay (by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin, ed. Astrid Vorstermans), Valiz Foundation, Amsterdam 2014.

[7] More on the work: Ulay. Der Erste Act / The First Act (by Thomas McEvilley), Cantz, 1994.

[8] Tevž Logar, “A Misfit and Up to His Neck in Water”, in: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay (by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin, ed. Astrid Vorstermans), Valiz Foundation, Amsterdam 2014. 

 [9] Ulay in an interview with Alessandro Cassin, “Peace Warrior”, in: Whispers: Ulay on Ulay (by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin, ed. Astrid Vorstermans), Valiz Foundation, Amsterdam 2014.