Damian Ortega
dal 15/2/2002 al 30/3/2002
Segnalato da
15/2/2002
Damian Ortega
D Amelio Terras, New York
Ortega will present objects that create both optical and physical illusions. In this exhibition, buildings become transparent, walls become flexible and reveal their constituent parts, and holes in the street come to life. What happens when the hard materials used to construct the space around us soften? When the life we breathe into a space actually changes that environment? Ortega's art is a modest yet insistent call for reconsideration of all that we see around us.
New Work
D'Amelio Terras is pleased to present the first New York gallery exhibition
and United States solo debut of Damián Ortega.
Ortega (born 1967) lives and works in Mexico City. He creates sculptures,
photographs and videos inspired by everyday objects such as pick-axes, golf
balls, children's toys, weeds and tortillas. Octavio Zaya writes that his
art has a 'consistent desire to play tricks with our expectations,'
deconstructing these items to 'carry out a mischevious process of
transformation and dysfunction.' This irreverence can be traced to a
'tradition of cultural assault that ranges from Dada to the Situationists,
from Buñuel to Conceptual art,' and has found consistent expression in
Mexican art. It is also informed by his previous occupation as a political
cartoonist, a highly regarded intellectual activity in Mexico. His artworks
conflate a formal grace with sly wit and institutional critique, provoking
reactions from viewers who are presented with an unfamiliar iteration of the
everyday.
Ortega will present objects that create both optical and physical illusions.
In this exhibition, buildings become transparent, walls become flexible and
reveal their constituent parts, and holes in the street come to life. What
happens when the hard materials used to construct the space around us
soften? When the life we breathe into a space actually changes that
environment? Ortega's art is a modest yet insistent call for
reconsideration of all that we see around us.
Damián Ortega has recently participated in group exhibitions at the Kiasma
Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland, the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art
Center in New York and at the Witte de With Museum of Contemporary Art in
Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He will be featured in a one-person exhibition
at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia this autumn.
Images and biographical information for the artist can be found on our
website.
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 16, 2002, 6-8 pm
Image:
Tortilla Module
1998
tortillas
dimensions variable
D'Amelio Terras represents the work of Polly Apfelbaum, Erica Baum, Delia
Brown, Tony Feher, Joanne Greenbaum, Glenn Ligon, John Morris, Rei Naito,
Rika Noguchi, Damián Ortega, Miguel Rio Branco, Karin Sander, Joe Scanlan,
and Yoshihiro Suda.
D'Amelio Terras
525 West 22nd Street New York, NY 10011
T. (212) 352-9460 - F. (212) 352-9464