lokal_30 is presenting Natalia LL at LOOP Barcelona

NATALIA LL
Consumer Art,
1972-75
16’ 01’’,
Single channel

Presented by lokal_30  (Warszawa) at #LOOP14

Probably the most notorious work by Natalia LL, “Consumer Art” presents models delighting in bananas, frankfurters or pudding. Obviously, this seemingly innocent activity acquires a strongly erotic edge. Combination of a “cold” film recording with a “hot” sensual motif stands for a rejection of the purely analytical character of conceptual art.

Natalia LL’s work has invited many feminist interpretations, which underlined the presence of the problems of sexuality and eroticism contradicting the status quo of social and cultural patriarchal structures. The artist’s works from the 1970s feature the themes of confrontation with male viewer, objection to ”phallic structures” and the issues of shaping female identity against tradition by means of taking over social, cultural and political activity – represented by the image of a woman who takes the sway and active position in eroticism. In the 1970s in Poland, it was significant not only from the individual perspective, but also the social and the political. The visualisation of satisfying sexual needs by a woman and equal rights in the domain of sex were received as somewhat of pornography, with the artist’s exhibitions censored and no public displays allowed. The art of Natalia LL became a political tool, an instrument of fight for equal rights, defining identity on the basis of consciousness-related look upon oneself.

Natalia LL (Natalia Lach-Lachowicz) was born in 1937 in Żywiec. She lives and works in Wrocław