Natalia LL. Secretum et Tremor

The book was published in the context of the exhibition Natalia LL. Secretum et Tremor at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2015. The texts collected in the book propose new perspectives on viewing the work of one of the greatest artists co-creating the history of Polish contemporary art.
The book presents new interpretations of Natalia LL’s art. The texts refer to a late period of the artist’s work, after 1989, which was omitted until now. This period was inspired by Germanic mythology and the music of Richard Wagner. Richly illustrated, it depicts new iconographic contexts (published for the first time, pictures of Natalia LL during her childhood from her private archive).
The artist’s text–"Anatomy of a Room"–evokes memories from Natalia LL’s childhood, spent in the Old Castle in Żywiec. An interview conducted by Adam Mazur with Ewa Toniak and Małgorzata Szczęśniak introduces the concept and arrangement of the exhibition Secretum et Tremor at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art. A brief iconographic analysis of the theme of Anthurium and Calla and their erotic–lethal symbolism in the text of Jakub Piwowarski bridges Consumer Art and the newest and late art of Natalia LL. The text of Anna Markowska enters Germanic mythology and the function of the body for Natalia LL into the cultural topography of post-war, communist Wrocław; next, Markowska interprets the transformation of Eros into Agape in the late works of the artist through the prism of a reading by Julia Kristeva. The artist’s anatomy of memories leads Katarzyna Naliwajek-Mazurek to a detailed cultural (including pop culture) analysis of the reception of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, and from there – to the sources of Natalia LL’s traumatic tremors, which marked the years of her late work. Amy Bryzgel, analyzing the conceptual, performative and feminist interpretations of Natalia LL’s work, as part of a broad panorama of the 1970s artworld, outlines the historical importance of her works in a global perspective.