Collection

How much it weighs employs the convention of stock product photography. The artist was inspired to make the photo by the website ilewazy.pl, a database of the nutritional value of food products and a kind of photographic typology of food. The products, placed against a uniform background, are photographed in a human hand, which performs the function of scale, providing a suggestion of the products’ actual size. The use of photography as a typological tool is deeply rooted in the darkest moments of the development of the medium: the valuing of certain conventions of depiction and delineation of the standards of how the human body should look. Witek Orski modifies the convention to create a space for reflection on how the photographic image operates, and to reveal its hidden mechanisms of dehumanizing violence. In his picture we see a Prince Polo candy bar displayed on a hand that does not fit the canon, as due to a congenital anomaly it has only two fingers. Fingerprints are visible on the chocolate surface, melting under the impact of body heat.

Visual artist, theoretician of photography. A philosophy graduate of the University of Warsaw, he creates photos, photographic installations, and video works. He refers to his practice as post-conceptual photography. He studies the relations between images, and is interested in the social functions of photography and its status in the field of art. The medium of the exhibition itself is also an essential tool for Orski. He arranges series of works into visual essays in which the reception of each item is meticulously designed. In 2010–2012 he was involved in the Czułość Gallery. He is a doctoral student in the Intermedia Department at the University of the Arts Poznań and a lecturer at the Szczecin Art Academy. He lives and works in Warsaw.