Gabriel Orozco (Mexican, b. 1962) emerged at the beginning of the 1990s as one of the most intriguing and original artists of his generation and one of the last to come of age in the twentieth century, with a body of work that is unique in its formal power and intellectual rigor. Orozco resists confinement to one medium, and roams freely and fluently among drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and painting. He has chosen a life and an artistic approach that could be called nomadic, ignoring any possible narrowness implied by national or regional identification. His native Mexico, New York, Paris, and working trips throughout the world all provide essential inspiration. He deliberately blurs the boundaries between the art object and the everyday environment, instead situating his contribution in a place that merges “art” and “reality,” whether in exquisite drawings made on airplane boarding passes or sculptures made from recovered trash.
Many of Orozco’s works—often specifically created for the occasion of an exhibition—have become indisputable classics of the art of the 1990s, such as the Citroën automobile surgically reduced to two-thirds its normal width (La DS, 1993) and the human skull covered with a graphite grid (Black Kites, 1997). This exhibition will provide the opportunity for many of these to be seen for the first time in New York and combine them with rich selections of work from Orozco’s vast body of smaller objects, paintings, and works on paper.
The exhibition is organized by Ann Temkin, Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition in New York will be followed by presentations at the Kunstmuseum Basel from April 10 to August 10, 2010 and the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris from September 10, 2010 to January 11, 2011.
The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019 (212) 708-9400
www.moma.org
Image: Gabriel Orozco. (Mexican, born 1962), Kytes Tree. 2005. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 6’ 6 ¾” x 6’ 6 ¾” (200 x 200 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase and gift of Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro and Donald B. Marron ©2009 Gabriel Orozco
