He describes himself self-deprecatingly, as the “most famous unknown artist”: Frank Uwe Laysiepen aka Ulay (*1943). Ulay radically merges his own life with art. With his artistic concept of transformation, he constantly creates new identities. His preferred medium is photography. Initially, in form of Polaroid, photography became an integral part of his artistic practice with its earliest results from 1970. The instant camera picture, which has now been replaced by the digital image, represents for Ulay the material in his long search for the representation of life. His body still today serves as the object of his research, where various influences leave traces and can be read, just like on a canvas. SCHIRN presents the first ever major survey exhibition by this exceptional artist. In addi­tion to numerous indi­vidual actions of perfor­ma­tive photog­raphy and body art, Ulay has real­ized many projects with other artists or has been influenced by them: Through the friendship with Jürgen Klauke he discovered separately the problem of identity and invented so called performative photography; with his muse Paula Françoise-Piso he created photo­graphic series, in which he inten­si­fied self-analysis until its complete disso­lu­tion; with his former partner Marina Abra­mović he eventually gained an extension of performance art that belongs to the most influential activities in that genre till today. The exhibition at SCHIRN brings together Ulay’s remarkable oeuvre in a comprehensive way. On show are both new works and performances, devised by the artist specifically for this exhibition, as well as numerous works of art, which he held back for years and which are now on view publicly for the first time.