Ulay, performance artist who pushes the limits, dies at 76

Ulay, the performance artist whose provocative collaborations with Marina Abramovic have often led them to push themselves to the extreme, died Monday at his home in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He was 76 years old.

The cause of death was unknown, said spokeswoman for Richard Saltoun Gallery, who represented him. Ulay had long suffered from cancer of the lymphatic system, she added.

Ulay, real name Frank Uwe Laysiepen, and Mrs. Abramovic were also romantic partners, from 1976 to 1988.

The pair work, although often dangerous, has sometimes been designed to show the public the intensity of their bond. In Rest energy, from 1980, they face each other, a bow and an arrow between them. Mrs. Abramovic held the bow while Ulay leaned back, pulling the taut arrow and pointing it at her chest. A slip could have caused Ulay to shoot the arrow directly into it.

In the years 1977 Light dark, they slapped themselves several times, and Inhale Exhale, they blocked their nostrils with cigarette filters, then closed their mouths, sharing their breath until they passed out.

In Crossing Nightsea, the couple sat at a table for seven hours straight, without moving and barely blinking. In 1986, Ms. Abramovic told the New York Times that labor began after the couple spent a year living together in the Australian outback. It was an attempt to bring some of the possible spiritual contemplation into the desert in a city, she said.

In Ulays' final work with Ms. Abramovic, Lovers, each of them has traveled more than 1,000 miles from different ends of the Great Wall of China until they meet. The work had been designed to result in the marriage of the couples, but at that time they were separated and it was used to mark their separation instead.

They haven't spoken for more than a decade.

Ulay was born on November 30, 1943 in Solingen, Germany. He trained as a photographer and work as a consultant for Polaroid. He used Polaroid photography at the start of his artistic career and experimented with representations of his identity, sometimes by dressing up. It gradually evolved into the art of performance.

The fame came after meeting Ms. Abramovic while living in Amsterdam in 1975. They immediately considered themselves soul mates and discovered that they were sharing the same birthday, wrote Ms. Abramovic in Walk Through Walls (2016), his autobiography.

Ulay treated Ms. Abramovics' wounds after cutting a star in her stomach as part of a show, and soon after, they decided to work together rather than individually, according to the story of Marina Abramovic & Ulay, a 2017 film.

After their breakup, Ulay continued to do his own work and started using Polaroid cameras again.

In 2010, he had a public meeting with Ms. Abramovic when he sat across from her and reached out to her during The Artist Is Present, a marathon performance at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in which she sat daily at the museum and looked into the eyes of individual museum visitors.

A clip of their reunion, on sentimental music, has been viewed more than 17 million times on YouTube. It was a very touching moment, Ulay told The Guardian in 2016.

I never repeat the performances, he said in the same interview. It's about spontaneity, no rules, no deadlines, no substitution.

Survivors of Ulays include his wife, Lena, and three children.

In 2015, Ulay sued Ms. Abramovic, claiming that she had not given him credit for the works and had not paid him correctly. In 2016, a Dutch court ordered Ms. Abramovic will pay 250,000 Ulay (approximately $ 280,000) in royalties as well as fees.

The couple then set aside their differences, at least enough to participate together in the 2017 film. It is with great sadness that I learned today of the death of my friend and former partner. Ulays, Mrs. Abramovic wrote on Instagram on Monday.