PROJECT 5: LOVE & MEDIOCRITY.

Man Waiting for 'a True Love'
Felt pen on paper. 7 inchhes x 4 inches.
Love and Mediocrity Notebook. 1975.

This project surveyed a wide range of assumptions and expectations about human relationships. Lenkiewicz viewed many of these expectations as foolish and unkind. In these ironic explorations, he attempted to demonstrate that rituals between couples were not based on reliable precepts: indeed, he attempted to demonstrate that there were no precepts. 'Fidelity' was a theme that ran through many of the images. It out across a whole range of irrational expectations in human relationships. In the notes on Love and Mediocrity, he writes:

"The experience of 'betrayal' is abrupt, sudden. The sense of shock, of being thrown back against a wall, of being reminded, of remembering something almost primeval One is not just remembering the 'last time' or the 'time before that'. One is remembering something characteristic of being what one is, characteristic of all that one forgets. The sense of betrayal is to have forgotten that one has forgotten. The inherited isolation which tradition tells us to be happy about, raises it's head (or rather we sink ours into it) every time one has forgotten' The shock is in no way connected with the 'other person, for they could never be the cause. Oneself and the mirrored image of oneself - disguised as the other person - play this trick time and again. "

Images of  'Lovers kissing each other in front of all their past and future lovers', of  'Man chasing woman chasing man chasing woman chasing man.....' Images of Man and Woman tied into a knot. Images of  'Man looking at a woman from a distance - with whom he has just copulated'. Of elderly couples with memories, of isolated individuals involved in a variety of auto  erotic activities. All these and more investigated the thesis that by and large the major part of a relationship's meaning' or 'value' passes entirely unnoticed by both partners.
'Addiction Ladders' were considered:

"The memory of an incident halves in intensity each time it is thought about until it becomes as_finite as forgetting allows. "

 
Eccentric links were formed between time ratios for addictions, the aesthetic experience that brought them about, and arithmetical and geometric formulas. Lenkiewicz notes:

"The experimental lover finds that a constant sequence of breakdowns in relationships is supported by the softened edges of previous 'reflections' and 'refractions'. Each time the mirror is employed the memory re-situates or 'refracts' the experience through the image of the following one. The recent lover has to thank all the previous 'refractions' of his lover - through other mirrors - for his present obsession. Their previous activities have created the 'refractions' to which his previous taste re- sponded. He has 'fallen in love' therefore, with an infinite sequence of 'refractions' through the mirror - lover - he now stares into ... It is a startling thought that as we suffer so deeply from the withdrawals of the 'present' scenario, the next situation is heading inexorably towards us from the future, and it too will be replaced by a sequel Indeed, most readers of this text can anticipate significant relationships with people who have not yet been born."