Christian Iconography as Consumer Commodity
¥€$U$ (JESUS) is a colour photobook by Pawel Jaszczuk, published by Zen Foto Gallery in 2019. Having returned to Poland after a decade living abroad, Jaszczuk found himself confronted with the saturation of Christian imagery across everyday consumer goods — sacred figures reproduced on underwear, chocolate, bathtub accessories, earrings, lamp-stands, tattoos, sex toys, and other mass-produced objects. The book documents and interrogates this condition: the grotesque convergence of holy symbols and commodity logic.
The photographs record these objects directly, without staging or narrative arrangement. The approach is descriptive — surfaces, repetition, context. ¥€$U$ (JESUS) does not editorialize. It presents the material as found: devotional iconography absorbed into the same distribution channels as any other consumer product, circulating without friction or distinction.
The deadpan register is consistent throughout. There is no hierarchy among the objects depicted, no progression toward a conclusion. The book poses the question without answering it — is this religion's way of staying current? — and leaves the accumulation of evidence to speak for itself.
From the publisher's statement: "Jesus and ¥€$U$. What is the difference here? The simple answer is: everything. Nowadays, Jesus is more a symbolic religious figure than he is a real person. From a cultural point of view he might be considered as a metaphorical figure — the personification of all virtues, the master figure. ¥ € $ U $ is an aberration of a religious order."
Further titles by the same photographer are available in the Pawel Jaszczuk collection. Additional publications from Zen Foto Gallery are listed in the publisher's collection. The full Photography & Photobooks catalogue is also available at Lokator100.
