Hole in the Ground (135)

Witek Orski’s photographs cannot be definitely located in the framework of a single convention of interpreting reality. They can be described as documentary; considering their representational plane, however, there is as much grounds for calling them abstractions. Their production process, in turns, makes it possible to present them in conceptual categories. Confronting the viewer with the work, that is, a photograph affixed in a frame of etched oakwood, Orski plays with the manners of representation and the schemata of reception; he juggles realism, abstraction and conceptualism. Thus, he faces the questions of photography’s place within art, its relation to abstraction, and the transparency of a medium often treated as one that credibly records reality.

The title of these works attests to their problematic status. The artist uses it to indicate what exactly was shown on the black-and-white photographs, thus deciphering their index stratum. Hole in the ground is a cycle of five photographs showing pits the artist had dug. Each of them was recorded on a standard negative smaller than the pit by a factor of ten. The prints were then enlarged to a huge size and framed. Thus, the cycle is based on well thought-out actions rooted in mathematical calculations and presupposing the artist’s previous individual physical work. This conception may provoke questions regarding the work as such, the character of the photographer’s effort (viz., digging a pit), and the status of the photograph: a work and/or a document. In his commentary, Orski separates the gesture of performing physical labour and the gesture of photographing: “The labour is performed so that some work can be created”.

The aspect of interest to the artist, i.e. the dependencies between the ability to represent, which is inherent in photography, and the meanings which can be imparted on what was recorded in photographs, is realised through the relations between the recipient and the work. The precise records of pits in the ground do not arouse associations with a realistic representation, but rather bring to mind the imaginarium typical of non-figurative art. They reveal the gesture of photographing as identical with the gesture of creating an image and, when linked with the title of the work, encourage narration-building. The field of interpretation is open for these works; as a result, their meanings grow dense, and concurrently the action, which is crucial to the artist’s conception and lies at the foundation of the creation of this work, is consigned to background.

Izabela Kopania

translated from Polish by Klaudyna Michałowicz