Gabriel Orlowski
Interstate
8 August - 14 August 2021
The domain is flooded with reports about record heat, crisis’, forest fires and power shifts. In all fields - economical, political, climatic - the prevailing expectations are of a cave in. Stark social contrast is a source of global discontent. A disproportionate, disciminative society we’ve theoretized about becomes true, and it strives to develop an own symbolism to empower and legitimize itself. A clockwork county that feeds on submission.

Interstate is an infrastructure, that subjugates a roaming type of flow. It segregates and validates destinations, as well as causes. It’s both a corridor and a stage. A plateau, if you will, that connects the agents and war machines. Of course plainly speaking an interstate is just a road, connecting two major administrative units, but it can also, literally, mean a temporary shift of status - an interim. A blurred, diffused agent on a direct approach to surplus and subjective morality.

The series’ emphasis is on the dystopic manifestations of trade, supply, labor and capital.


‘A photographic image, for me, is adventurous – attracted the most by irregularity, spectacularity and presence. It’s a tool for deconstructing the visible; for decoding manifestations and appropriating visual resources. I have picked up and enjoyed photography for how it is able to shift meanings and reroute contexts. Through the camera, there is only fiction. When all variables are fluid, any objectivity is questionable.

I use this fact to juxtapose vision with a hybrid narrative with understatements, working intuitively, instead of shooting pre-conceived projects. As a former musician, I am keen to improv and work on impulse. I put a lot of emphasis on the aesthetics, which is why I use both digital and analog tech. I believe that even before a medium’s message is read, it should arouse curiosity as a flat composition in itself. A proper balance between the contained info and a global abstract of an image should be maintainted.

My primal interest is contemporaneity and anthropocene in general, with many of its’ manifestations - identity, fragmentation, power, speed... I observe the global politics with deep interest. Each phenomenon has a distinct ambience, its’ own dynamics and ADSR - an amorphous, virtual stain with vectors of influence - with limited predictability and intentionality within its’ theater of operations. Everything is momentary and in constant shift; all text is euphemism, all talk is stutter. I see my work as a ridiculous, trippy, post-modernist paradocumentary, with emphasis on the background processes. What interests me the most is the fluidity and the constant process of transformation, construction and adaptation of the environment and the man’s place within. There is always something wrong with the scenography and yet this fact can never be entirely concealed. There’s cables sticking out; a maintenance note, a misplaced tile. For a brief moment, the weird cogwheel - a swirling dice of accidentality - is bare in discomfort.’

-Gabriel Orlowski



Gabriel Orlowski (b. 1989, Warsaw, Poland) is a photographer, author, collaborator and collector of photographic zines and artbooks.

He holds a Master of Arts degree and has graduated the Photography Department of the Polish National Film, TV, and Theatre School in Łódź in 2016.

Key issues in his practice are man-managed environments, entropy and the photographic image as a mode of communication. He is interested in modernity, technology and accidentality, as well as the theoretical aspect of perception.

Orłowski is currently represented in Italy by Shazar Gallery. Notable solo and group shows include the Agnes B. Galerie du Jour in Paris, Galeria Leto in Warsaw, Zigutamve in Vienna and Gallery Shazar in Naples, as well as a solo show during the Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2018 in Stroboskop Art Space.