Natalia LL

Natalia LL studied at Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts. The recorded working language is Polish. Work by Natalia LL is recorded in the collections of National Museum in Wrocław, Slovak National Gallery and National Museum in Warsaw. Distinctions recorded are Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.

• Name — Natalia LL • Birth Name — Natalia Lach-Lachowicz • Born — 18 April 1937 • Birthplace — Żywiec, Poland • Died — 12 August 2022 • Field — Painting, photography, drawing, performance, video art • Training — Academy of Fine Arts, Wrocław • Works — Consumer art (1972) • Website — https: nataliall.com/en/

Natalia Lach-Lachowicz was born in Żywiec, Poland. From 1946 to 1956, Lach-Lachowicz lived in Bielsko-Biała where she completed basic and secondary education. From 1957 to 1963 she studied at the State College of Fine Arts (nowadays Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts) in Wrocław under the supervision of Professor S. Dawski, where she completed her MSc. In 1964 she received a Diploma of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF).

Natalia LL was a conceptual artist and photographer, associated with the avant-garde scene of the 1960s in Poland. Through photography and video she deconstructed single-frame photographs and satirizes the images that were presented in advertising, television, and print in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1970 she co-founded PERMAFO, an artists' group and gallery, with Zbigniew Dłubak and Andrzej Lachowicz. In 1971, after marrying Lachowicz, she assumed the name Natalia LL. Since 1975 she was engaged in the international feminist art movement and took part in various symposia and exhibitions. Her series, Consumer Art (1972–1975), depicts close ups of women eating and biting foods like bananas, sausages, and melons. It is often read as a critique, questioning the common representation of women in pornography. She said of it "Feminists saw in my consumer art a perverse struggle with the cult of the phallus and with masculinity. For me it was rather the manifestation of a feeling of life and liveliness." After suffering from a severe illness in the late 1970s, Natalia LL began to delve into transcendental and mythological subjects, often photographing her performances. In 2018, the ZW Foundation was founded to preserve the works of Natalia LL as well as to provide a "place for exchanging scientific ideas and creative thoughts". In April 2019, after an anonymous complaint, the Polish National Museum in Warsaw removed from an exhibition works by Natalia LL, Katarzyna Kozyra, and the duo formed by Karolina Wiktor and Aleksandra Kubiak. This act, which was seen as an act of censorship of feminist art, led to widespread protests; a movement termed "#bananagate." Between 2004 and 2013 she was a senior lecturer at the University of Fine Arts in Poznań. She died on 12 August 2022, aged 85.

• Illustration — Kompendium, Zbigniew Dłubak, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, Andrzej Lachowicz, Wrocław Contemporary Museum

• Piramida/Pyramid, Galeria Spojrzenia, Wrocław, 1980 • Allusive Space, Frauenmuseum, Bonn, 1995 • Ogrody personlizmu/Gardens of Personalism, Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, 1998 • The Whole of the Parts, Galeria Wangarda BWA, Wrocław, 2005 • Natalia LL – Opus Magnum, Ernst Múzeum, Budapest, 2012 • Doing Gender, lokal_30, Warsaw, 2013 • Natalia LL. Intimate Photography, Galerie Steinek, Vienna, 2018 • Natalia LL. The Mysterious World, Francisco Carolinum, 2021

• Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, 1979 • La photographie polonaise, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1982 • Darkside - Photographic Desire and Sexuality Photographed, Fotomuseum, Winterthur, 2008 • 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 & Zachęta National Gallery of Art Warsaw • Natalia LL, Józef Robakowski, Ewa Juszkiewicz, gallery lokal_30 at Frieze New York City, 2016

• Illustration — Aksamitny terror, 1970 • Illustration — Sztuka Postkonsumpcyjna, 1975 • Illustration — Śnienie, 1978 • Illustration — Sztuka zwierzęca / Animal Art, 1978 • Illustration — Erotyzm trwogi, 2004

The authorities additionally record the heading Natalia Lach-Lachowicz. Her recorded language was Polish. She married Andrzej Lachowicz.

What the record establishes about Natalia LL. Natalia LL is recorded as photographer, painter and artist.

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