Natasha Shulte

Natalia Shulte was born in 1975 in Odesa, southern Ukraine. She graduated from the Odesa State Economic University and the Speos School of Photography in Paris. Shulte’s photographs possess a painterly quality, blurring the lines between dream and reality. The present work forms part of the series ‘The Symposium: Third Gender and Cyborgs’. The series is inspired by Plato’s famous philosophical text The Symposium, which describes the Greek god Zeus deciding to cut humans of the three genders – male, female and androgynous – into two parts in order to limit their power. The minimalistic photographs, including the present work, depict statuesque, androgynous figures devoid of individual characteristics. The latent tension present in these images evokes tropes from Greek mythology. Shulte’s project is equally a reference to Donna Haraway’s seminal feminist text The Cyborg Manifesto from 1985, which defines gender, race and class as concepts imposed on humans through the social realities of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism.

*The Consignor is donating 100% of the hammer price from the sale of this and other designated artworks, to be sold during Sotheby’s Contemporary Discoveries online sale held from May 13-19, 2022, to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a not-for-profit humanitarian aid organization that is helping to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine. In addition, in relation to these designated artworks, Sotheby’s will donate 1) 100% of its Overhead Premium to IRC, and 2a) where the artwork is consigned by Ukrainian artist(s), 100% of its Buyer's Premium to such artist(s), and 2b) for all other artworks, its Buyer's Premium, after deducting expenses, to IRC. No portion of the purchase price is tax-deductible. For more information about the IRC, visit www.rescue.org