Natalia LL (born 1937) is a visual artist working with photography, experimental videos and installations. Her abundant, multifaceted oeuvre might take its motto from one of her texts from 1987: "Art is the search for freedom. Freedom is a goal in and of itself, and art realizes that goal." Her work builds conceptual meaning on seemingly straightforward messages. Intimate Photography, an installation derived from Pop Art, has strikingly erotic overtones bordering on pornography. Early projects created in 1971 and 1972, titled Consumer Art and Post-consumer Art, have the model perform activities such as the consumption of suggestive foods: bananas, whipped cream, milk. The images were presented as photographic performances, much like a film, with the artist using photography as an imaginary language to reach a dreamlike realm where the activities reduce to pure aesthetics and sensual experience. Today, however, communist-era Poland of the 1970s comes across as a period of fierce awakening of consumer appetites, and an opportunity to create visuals to help sate them.
Karol Radziszewski (born 1980) lives and works in Warsaw, where he received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. He works with photography, video, film, installations and creates interdisciplinary projects. His practice extends to magazines, artist books, fashion and curatorial concept projects. He is publisher and editor in chief of DIK Fagazine, dedicated to queer issues in the context of art and lifestyle. Radziszewski has exhibited at major institutions and festivals around the world, including the National Museum and the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, the New York Photo Festival and the New Museum in New York, Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism and the Cobra Museum in Amsterdam.
America Is Not Ready For This
Directing: Karol Radziszewski
Cinematography: Rafał Żurek, Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria, Johan Decaix
Editing: Marek Sobolewski
Music: Adam Walicki
Sound: Kamil Radziszewski
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart, November 2011
Source: Wrocław Contemporary Museum, karolradziszewski.com