Gabriel Orozco
19 Jan - 25 Apr 2011
Gabriel Orozco, 'Island Within an Island' (1993)
© Courtesy of the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; and kurimanzutto, Mexico City
© Courtesy of the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; and kurimanzutto, Mexico City
Creative, playful and inventive, Gabriel Orozco creates art in the streets, his apartment or wherever he is inspired. Born in Mexico but working across the globe, Orozco is renowned for his endless experimentation with found objects, which he subtly and playfully alters.
His sculptures, often made of everyday things that have interested him, reveal new ways of looking at something familiar. A skull with a geometric pattern carefully drawn onto it, a classic Citroën DS car which the artist sliced into thirds, removing the central part to exaggerate its streamlined design, and a scroll filled with numbers cut out of a phone book are just some of his unique sculptures.
Orozco’s photos are also on display, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments: water collecting in a punctured football, tins of cat food arranged on top of watermelons in a supermarket, or condensed breath disappearing from the surface of a piano show Orozco’s eye for simple but surprising and powerful images.
His art also shows his fascination with game-playing, for example a billiard table with no pockets and a pendulum-like hanging ball, or Knights Running Endlessly, an extended chess board filled with an army of knights, both of which are well-known games to which he has added an element of futility. This kind of unexpected twist makes Orozco’s work interesting to both contemporary art lovers and also anyone who wants an unusual and captivating art experience.
Exhibition organised by The Museum of Modern Art, New York in association with Tate Modern. Global exhibition sponsor: Fundación Televisa and the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA), Mexico.
His sculptures, often made of everyday things that have interested him, reveal new ways of looking at something familiar. A skull with a geometric pattern carefully drawn onto it, a classic Citroën DS car which the artist sliced into thirds, removing the central part to exaggerate its streamlined design, and a scroll filled with numbers cut out of a phone book are just some of his unique sculptures.
Orozco’s photos are also on display, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments: water collecting in a punctured football, tins of cat food arranged on top of watermelons in a supermarket, or condensed breath disappearing from the surface of a piano show Orozco’s eye for simple but surprising and powerful images.
His art also shows his fascination with game-playing, for example a billiard table with no pockets and a pendulum-like hanging ball, or Knights Running Endlessly, an extended chess board filled with an army of knights, both of which are well-known games to which he has added an element of futility. This kind of unexpected twist makes Orozco’s work interesting to both contemporary art lovers and also anyone who wants an unusual and captivating art experience.
Exhibition organised by The Museum of Modern Art, New York in association with Tate Modern. Global exhibition sponsor: Fundación Televisa and the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA), Mexico.