Filmoteka Muzeum

Developing the themes explored in the earlier work Original Sin, this film concentrates on vagina in order to confront the traditional and patriarchal outlook on female sexuality. The artist has managed to skillfully liken the vagina to an eye – adding lashes and make-up. The “eye” opens and shuts its “lids”, moves the glass eyeball stuck inside.

Thus, vagina transmogrifies from a passive and blind source of joy into an organism which can see you. In Żebrowska’s film it’s the vagina that is able to observe – which in the light of the references featured in Original Sin brings to mind the all-seeing eye of God.

The film is an image of a total reversal of the criticised patriarchal order and rejection of all mechanisms of control of female sexuality operating within its scope.

References: I. Kowalczyk, Ciało i władza. Polska sztuka krytyczna lat 90., Warsaw 2002; I. Kowalczyk, Niebezpieczne związki sztuki z ciałem, Galeria Arsenał, Poznań 2002; A. Kwiecień, Na płaszczyźnie wyczekiwania. O wnikaniu tabu w twórczość artystyczną Alicji Żebrowskiej, “Fragile” vol. 1/2008.
 

(ŁM)