• Digital Print
• LS White Velvet 270gr Fine Art Paper
• Image Size: 55x40 cm
• Total Size: 70x50 cm
• Date: 2024
• 25 units
• Ref.: ED36891

The work was part of the exhibition ‘JE T'AUTORISE A ÊTRE MOI, JE M'AUTORISE A ÊTRE TOI’ by ORLAN, presented from 18 May to 10 June 2024.

Portraitist of Queen Marie Antoinette, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun (1755-1842) was one of the great portraitists of her time. Emancipated and virtuous in her domain, she is recognized as the most famous painter of the 18th century, at a time when few women dared to have a professional career.

ORLAN produced a series of paintings entitled “Problematic Geometric Painting”, where she opposes classicism and brush painting, creating works made with an airbrush, where the industrial representation leaves no trace of physicality. Elisabeth Louise is therefore shown painting one of these works. In this way, ORLAN confronts two temporalities, two ways of conceiving painting. To the painter's palette, ORLAN adds strips of tape as he did in his iconic performance “À poil sans verre” (Nude without glass) presented for the first time at the Louvre Museum. Elisabeth Louise's historic hairstyle is reinterpreted by ORLAN's signature two-tone hair. Having integrated his own face onto Elisabeth Louise's body, ORLAN decided to create a mise en abyme by adding his own portrait of the performance “The Kiss of the artist: Vending Machine, Well, Almost!” from 1977/2009.