It’s over for Natalia LL. Natalia Lach-Lachowicz was a well-known and contentious artist who passed away on August 12 in the morning. Age-wise, she was 85.
How Did Natalia LL Die?
This morning, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, also known as Natalia LL, passed away. Age-wise, she was 85.
The artist’s passing was announced on Facebook by Mateusz Kozieradzki, an art historian and the president of the ZW foundation.
Natalia LL Cause of death
The cause of the death is still unknown
Mateusz Kozieradzki, an art historian and the head of the ZW foundation, posted a notice on Facebook announcing the death of the artist.
Who was Natalia LL?
Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, sometimes known as Natalia LL, was a Polish artist who worked with paint, photography, drawing, performance, and video art (18 April 1937–12 August 2022).
She was referred to as “an overlooked early 1970s Polish-born pioneer of female avant-garde image production” by Sean O’Hagan in a 2017 article for The Guardian.
Natalia LL Biography
In 1937, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz was born. In Wroclaw, she attended the State Higher School of Fine Arts, which is today known as the Academy of Fine Arts. The artist had a wide range of endeavors. She worked on video projects, graphic design, painting, photography, and cinema.
She was drawn to her “Velvet Terror” or “Intimate Photography” series of pornographic photos.) A woman eating a banana in “consumer art”
Since 1972, all of my work has been influenced by conceptual play and consumerism. According to Natalia LL, who was quoted in the catalog for the exhibition “Secretum et tremor” at the Center for Contemporary Art, “the obvious perversity of consumer art was a kind of mockery of the world of mature concreteness, so bananas in submissive and charming lips could turn, due to our perverse imagination, into penises hungry for caresses.”
Even briefly, the contentious piece vanished from the National Museum in Warsaw before appearing there again shortly after. In 2013 Natalia Lach-Lachowicz won the Katarzyna Kobro Award, and in 2018 she won the Rosa Schapire Art Prize.
The controversies
Many people chose to protest against such “censorship” by eating bananas in front of the building three years ago when the National Museum decided to remove the artwork of Natalia LL and Katarzyna Kozyra from the exhibition.
The institution’s director restored these pieces a few days later and stated that the museum’s goal is to “show a variety of artistic orientations and mindsets.” He said that the Ministry of Culture had not made an effort to have the artwork taken down.
The works of Natalia LL
Conceptual artist and photographer Natalia LL was active in Poland’s avant-garde movement in the 1960s. She satirizes the images used in advertising, television, and print in the 1970s and 1980s by disassembling single-frame shots using photography and video. Her 1972–1975 series Consumer Art shows close-ups of women nibbling on delicacies like bananas, sausages, and melons.
It is frequently interpreted as a critique, calling into question how frequently women are portrayed in pornography. “Feminists perceived a strange fight between my consumer art and the religion of the phallus and masculinity. For me, it was more like the expression of a spirit of life and vibrancy.
After enduring a terrible illness in the late 1970s, Natalia LL started exploring mythological and transcendental themes, frequently documenting her performances.
After receiving an anonymous complaint in April 2019, the Polish National Museum in Warsaw removed artwork by Karolina Wiktor and Aleksandra Kubiak, Natalia LL, and Katarzyna Kozyra from an exhibition. This action, which was perceived as censoring feminist art, sparked worldwide protests under the hashtag “#bananagate.”
Awards
Natalia LL received a silver medal from Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2007 for her contributions to culture.
Exhibitions
Solo shows
- The Mysterious World, Natalia LL. Francisco Carolinum, 2021
- Intimate Photography by Natalia LL, Galerie Steinek, Vienna, 2018.
- Doing Gender, Warsaw, 2013, Lokal 30
- Opus Magnum by Natalia LL, 2012, Ernst Museum, Budapest
- Galeria Wangarda BWA, Wroclaw, 2005, The Whole of the Parts
- Gardens of Personalism, Center for Popular Culture Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, 1998
- 1995 exhibit, Allusive Space, Frauenmuseum, Bonn
- Galeria Spojrzenia, Wroclaw, 1980, Piramida/Pyramid
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Group shows
- by gallery lokal 30, Natalia LL, Józef Robakowski, Ewa Juszkiewicz, and Frieze 2016 in New York City
- Rebelle: Art and Feminism 1969-2009, Museum Voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, Netherlands, 2009 Gender Check, Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe, mumok Museum Moderner Kunst – Stiftung Ludwig Vienna & Zachta National Gallery of Art Warsaw
- Fotomuseum, Winterthur, 2008, “Darkside: Photographic Desire and Sexuality Photographed”
- The Polish Photograph, 1982, Center Georges Pompidou, Paris
- Brazil’s Bienal of So Paulo, 1979
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