Common Objects

Eroticism is one of the issues at the core of Natalia LL’s artistic pursuits. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the artist examined sexuality and femininity along with the taboos associated with sex and female pleasure. Among the various keys in the analysis of these issues was consumption, a problematic concept in Poland at the time due to the economic, political, and moral climate. Utilising ambiguous gestures and props, as well as images of her own body and the bodies of models, Natalia LL deftly juggled connotations and allusions while employing personal experience in taking a closer look at universal issues.

Photographs depicting stages of love-making appeared in Natalia LL’s portfolio in the late 1960’s. She kept returning to this motif regularly, duplicating successive shots within a single piece and building rhythmic compositions. In the Common Objects installation, where the element found in the Arsenal Gallery’s collection originates, the artist draped sheets of fabric with close-up photos printed on them over two chairs, a table and a hospital bed. The thoughtful composition and attention to the formal qualities of each of the shots place the works outside of the realm of mere pornography. In a way that is at once direct and sublime, the artist comments on a layer of human identity – the extremely important yet taboo-riddled sphere of sexuality.

Philosophical references play an important role in Natalia LL’s deliberations on eroticism. The artist often sources Plato, who in his Symposium described the first humans as dualistic beings having one or two genders. He spoke of archetypical entities – female-female, male-male, and an androgynous female-male combination – which became separated by divine will. Both women and men seek to regain the original wholeness, with the unification, driven by the feeling of a void, carried out through the act of intercourse. In addition to the joyful aspect of eroticism, the artist also points out its darker face, which is manifest in fear and denial. Her photographs convey the coexistence of these opposing elements and suspend eroticism and the sexual act in the gulf between the commonplace and the mystical, between experiencing pleasure and regaining oneness.

Izabela Kopania