SSS

1976–1988

“The Other”: one being with two heads

The duo’s main themes were the ego and artistic identity: they decided to form a joint being, “The Other”, and to speak of themselves as parts of a two-headed body, dressing and behaving like twins and keeping no secrets from each other. Among the works of these years is “Breathing In/Breathing Out” (also known as “Death Self”): with their mouths joined, they inhaled each other’s exhaled breath until the oxygen ran out, and in under twenty minutes both had collapsed unconscious.

1988

Farewell walk along the Great Wall of China

To end their relationship with a spiritual journey (“Lovers”), they walked towards each other along the Great Wall — Ulay from the Gobi Desert, she from the Yellow Sea — and after 2,500 km each they met in the middle and said goodbye for ever; the walk took about three months, and permission from the Chinese government had taken eight years, by which time their relationship had completely dissolved.

1990–1996

Visiting professor in Paris, Berlin and Hamburg

From 1990 to 1995 she was a visiting professor at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Berlin University of the Arts, and from 1992 to 1996 at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg.