Opening: 14.06.2024 (Friday), 5PM
Exhibition: 15–23.06.2024, Mon–Sun.: 10AM–6PM
Place: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Fotograficzne, Piotrkowska 102, 90-004 Lodz, Poland
Curator: Katarzyna Sagatowska
Partners: QPrint, Jednostka Gallery
Very few models have a perfect bust
Philip Gotlop
The Technique of Nude Photography, a two-volume book by Philip Gotlop was gifted to me (as a joke) by a friend. Inside, it contained black and white nude photos (almost exclusively female), each accompanied by instructions regarding the technical parameters of photography and recommendations on how to position the models in space. The text also included many remarks relating to various strengths and defects of bodies. The women depicted in these photographs were utterly devoid of individual expression. They all represented one type: young, white, slim, and smooth. Set in aesthetically pleasing poses, they seemed to follow male expectation and lust, as if detached from themselves. Their eroticised and sublimated bodies were reduced to the objects of desire. The only man who posed for a few shots was an oiled-up bodybuilder flaunting his strength and agency.
The handbook was published in the 1950s in London. At the time, the commonly accepted concept of femininity involved strict aesthetic requirements (perfect appearance), as well as social ones (politeness, submissiveness, prioritising the needs of others over one’s own, conforming to the existing hierarchy while having one’s own influence limited in the social and political arenas).
Looking into the mirror of a bygone era, I felt a growing pressure. It was the repression of cultural norms and patterns that, despite the passing of decades, had not dissolved. The constriction that moulds us to the forms of how to live, love, and look. Control and interference. No respect and acceptance of otherness. Only judgment and appraisal.
Tired of the patriarchal paradigm, I decided to destroy both volumes. I cut them into pieces and then glued them back together, incorporating elements from other publications. It felt incredibly liberating. With each successive piece, I allowed myself to go further. I combined parts of naked human bodies with animals, plants, landscapes and representations taken from the art and religions of diverse cultures. I loosely referred to myths and indigenous beliefs, deriving from their great variety. I looked for the repressed, the devalued, the forbidden.
The resulting hybrids represent strength and freedom. They are conscious and authentic beings, their gender often unexplicit. Nudes are an affirmation of liberty and diversity and an attempt to elevate the things that have been banished and dreaded most by the patriarchal order for centuries. Being authentic. Being empowered.
Technique: hand-made collages complemented by painting and drawing techniques.
The project was made as a part of an art grant from the City of Warsaw.
The installation included in the exhibition was made in collaboration with the Archaeology of Photography
Foundation.
Magda Hueckel – visual artist, screenwriter, filmmaker, theatre photographer. Her works have been exhibited in more than 40 individual and over 60 collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including Tate Britain in London, Circulation in Paris, Unseen Amsterdam, Vienna Art Fair, Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin). When it comes to film, she collaborates with Tomasz Śliwiński. Their documentary received an Oscar nomination, and the web series Plague Chronicles won the main prize in the DIG IT competition for the best theatre activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Magda Hueckel is the author of photo documentation of several hundred theatre performances as well as photography books: Anima. Images from Africa 2005-2013 and HUECKEL/THEATER, nominated for the Photographic Publication of the Year Award 2014 and 2016. She is also the CEO and founder of Polish CCHS Foundation “Lift the curse”, winner of the EURORDIS Black Pearl Award 2020.
Magdalena Hueckel, Maenad, from the ‘Nudes’ series, 2024
Magdalena Hueckel, Oya, from the ‘Nudes’ series, 2024
Magdalena Hueckel, Erzulie, from the ‘Nudes’ series, 2024
Magdalena Hueckel, Findyourgoddess, from the ‘Nudes’ series, 2024