“When you take a selfie, you follow your outstretched hand with your eyes. With a selfie, you usually slow down or stop, because you want to get a good effect, you want to make yourself look good. And when you move again, you should look where you put your feet, like Jerzy Lewczyński, who must have watched the ground under his feet very closely, since he so often found lost prints or film. As he said, ‘every negative becomes sensational after 50 years’. He did not have a habit of leaving behind any of his images, and we can only imagine that Lewczyński must have walked quite a lot for those found photographs.

The problem with photographs is that sometimes, they just don’t turn out well. These portraits, hidden in our wallets, the official ID photos, the biometric passport pictures – faces that look like those of criminals turn out to be outs. Pinkerton-like mugshots – portraits of criminals, captured with a camera before anything starts to happen with the owners of the faces – come to mind when we look at official documents used to confirm our identities.

But ‘what does a painter do?’ We can repeat the question asked in Wrocław a few years ago. Well, a painter is a guy for hire (he doesn’t always get up at dawn). He’s a specific kind of detective – one who hires himself.  He tracks and follows and reaches out a hand willing to engage in art in photographs for images already abandoned and those being abandoned right now.”

-    Dominik Stanisławski 

Witold Stelmachniewicz [mug - shots]

12th od March – 25th of March 2016

mia ART GALLERY

Gallery opening hours:

tue - fri 12:00 – 18:00

sat 12:00 – 16:00

Organizer: mia ART GALLERY

Partners: Fundacja All That Art!, SleepWalker Boutique Suites, Gephard Group, Fabryka Sensu