The following brief explanation was contained in the booklet produced to accompany a Retrospective of Lenkiewicz's work in 1997.
"The promises have been kept, nevertheless, I have been swindled." Simone de Beauvoir.
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 cut 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 responded. 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. "
THIS COLLECTION IS SECTION TWO OF THE ‘LOVE & MEDIOCRITY THEME: THIS THEME IS ONE OF FOUR SECTIONS – (RELATIONSHIPS; ATTITUDES TOWARDS LOVE), THE OTHERS ARE ‘LOVE & ROMANCE’, ‘LOVE & TRAGEDY’ AND ‘LOVE & HUMOUR’. THE PRESENT EXHIBITION IS EASIER TO APPROACH BY PURCHASING THE NOTES AVAILABLE AT THE DESK. IT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD THAT THESE PROJECTS ARE VIEWED BY THE PAINTER AS A MEANS OF PRESENTING INFORMATION THAT HAS RESULTED FROM OBSERVATION, INQUIRY AND RESEARCH. AT NO POINT ARE THESE EXHIBITIONS VIEWED BY HIM AS HAVING ANY CONNECTION WITH WHAT IS CALLED ‘ART’.
1. Vivolyn: £65
2. Lesley: £50
3. Belle: £50
4. Mabel: £40
5. Magdalena: £30
6. Myriam and Magdalena £250
7. Annie with three towels SOLD
8. You gave me a dead rose; may I give you a dead rat? £65
9. Self portrait: SOLD
10. Self portrait: £50
11. Self portrait with lover: SOLD
12. Letter boxes running to catch the post on a cloudy day just before
the end of the world: £18
13. Man with pillow and man with pillow: £80
14. Dave and Anona: £60
15. The Great Lover: £26
16. The Great Lover: £25
17. The Great Lover: £22
18. The Great Lover: £32
19. The Great Lover: £50
20. Myriam: £30
21. Myriam: £26
22. Belle: £28
23. Lelya: £30
24. Myriam: £34
25. Francesca: £30
26. Belle: £28
27. Liz: £30
28. Myriam: £30
29. Belle: £28
30. Francesca: £32
31. Myriam: £30
32. Lovers with child: £50
33. Lovers with child: £40
34. Annie ‘with child’: £50
35. Annie ‘with child’: £26
36. Lovers with child: £50
37. Three women: £50
38. Self Portrait: £25
39. The Burial of Belle Pecorini and Monica Quirk: £300
40. Rodin’s/Delacroix’s Three Shades burying Belle Pecorini and Monica Quirk: £35
41. The Burial of Belle Pecorini and Monica Quirk: £29
42. The Great Lover: £40
43. The Burial of Belle Pecorini and Monica Quirk: £35
44. The Burial of Belle Pecorini and Monica Quirk: £44
45. Lovers dancing over the graves of previous lovers: £12
46. Man & Woman attempting to kiss each other in front of all the lovers
of the past and all the lovers of the future: £14
47. Lovers dancing over the graves of previous lovers: £26
48. Lover with memories: £30
49. Lover with six memories: £50
50. Man chasing woman or woman being chased by a man: £45
51. Woman with dead lover: SOLD
52. The auto-lover hydra with seven memories: £16
53. The Great Lover: £15
54. Lover with Memory: £35
55. Lovers with memory: £50
56. Man watching woman with whom he has just copulated
walking into the distance £23
57. Lovers kissing through a rainbow with a dark cloud: £25
58. Self portrait with Myriam: £55
59. Lovers passing through: £40
60. Wating for True love: £28
61. Francesca: £40
62. I’m dying to see you: £20
63. I’m dying to see you: £20
64. Man watching woman looking at herself in a mirror: £26
65. Woman looking into a mirror: £23
66. Woman watching man looking at himself in a mirror: £24
67. Lovers in the stocks: £75
68. Lovers, all in good time: £26
69. ‘Jimmy Peg-leg’: £55
70. Old man AND the moon: £30
71. Lovers: £30
72. Study for a fuck graph: £35
73. Getting to know each other: £60
74. Lovers in a street: £32
75. Katherine and Heathclife: £80
76. Myriam: £22
77. Magdalena: £25
78. Thais and Athanael: £35
79. Lovers touching all the ones before and all the ones after: £30
80. Lovers with each others lovers: £30
81. See that stranger who’s just asked me the time? £20