Lovers by Ljubica Denkovic

Bodies beaten by beauty reside within the cages of their own emotions, but they are also interwoven with other bodies. The cruel secret of attraction joins those bodies together.

What happens within that bond? I don’t use photography just to dissect the bodies, but the nature of their mutuality as well. In interaction, the body secrets fear and anxieties: the fear of transience, of being lost, of abandonment, of loneliness, the fear of itself and everything else. How does the body look like when it is being devoured by fear? In relationships, we wear ourselves out and donate our body parts, and in the end, in anguish we amputate the remains of ourselves from another. What remains of us after a relationship? A feeling of decay. I can see that state of being through the eyes of the camera. I look at myself from above and say: -No, no more! Until the next time, of course. Renewed after one decomposition, we rush into the next one, forging new connections which only leave us dismembered again. How many times can we repeat that merciless game of serial monogamy? Do we become less vulnerable? Resistant to the so-called love?

Partialism: I admire you, I will dismember you

I like to observe hands, feet, lips… Often I don’t remember the eyes, but I do remember the shape and the shade of the lips, because they are the place of passion. I watch and I wonder how do people act towards themselves, do they feel their own bodies, how much do they (not) like it, which parts they would substitute or improve, and with what reason? In China, they worship the feet enough to break them, Padaung people are so obsessed with the neck that they shackle it, Ethiopian women wear jewellery in their lips which breaks their teeth… The cultural map of beauty is entwined with pain, and worship of the body parts is inevitably bordered with their mutilation and desecration. I like to examine that border. I am especially drawn to the bodies of the dancers, because I think that dance is the most dynamic transformation of the body; it is both joyous and painful. Their bodies are sculpted to perfection and proudly displayed, and they come as a result of hours and hours of hard work, physical exploitation and exhaustion. How beautiful is the body indeed, if we know that the beauty is born out of pain?