Gabriel Orozco
dal 7/12/2009 al 28/2/2010
Segnalato da
7/12/2009
Gabriel Orozco
The Museum of Modern Art - MoMA, New York
He roams freely and fluently among drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and painting, creating a heterogeneous body of objects that resists categorization. The midcareer retrospective exhibition examining two decades of the artist's career in a varied body of objects, ranging from subtle interventions in the landscape to meticulously executed sculptures and quick snapshots. In all of his work, art intermingles with reality, and idea is inseparable from experience.
Organization: Ann Temkin, Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art
Since the early 1990s, Gabriel Orozco (Mexican, b. 1962)
has forged a career marked by constant surprise and innovation. He roams freely and fluently
among drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and painting, creating a heterogeneous body
of objects that resists categorization. Sixteen years after The Museum of Modern Art organized
Projects 41: Gabriel Orozco (1993)—the artist’s first solo museum show—MoMA presents the midcareer retrospective exhibition Gabriel Orozco, examining two decades of the artist’s career. In
this time, Orozco has produced an extraordinarily varied body of objects, ranging from subtle
interventions in the landscape to meticulously executed sculptures and quick snapshots. In all of
his work, art intermingles with reality, and idea is inseparable from experience.
Many of Orozco’s works 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 works to be seen for the first time in New York. A rich selection of
objects, drawings, paintings, and photographs will complement and provide a context for Orozco’s
large sculptures and installations. The exhibition highlights the diversity of Orozco’s materials and
the variety of his methods while presenting an oeuvre that is unique in formal power and
intellectual rigor.
Also included in the exhibition are the well-known sculptures and installations My Hands
Are My Heart (1991), Yielding Stone (1992), Elevator (1994), Four Bicycles (There Is Always One
Direction) (1994), Yogurt Caps (1994), Lintels (2001), and Working Tables, 2000-2005 (2005).
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Ann Temkin, The Marie-
Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art. It
was designed by Pure+Applied in collaboration with Orozco. Critical essays by Ann Temkin;
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, The Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art, Harvard University; and
Briony Fer, Professor of Art History at University College, London provide new approaches to
grounding Orozco’s work in the larger landscape of contemporary art. They are complemented by
a richly illustrated chronology by Paulina Pobocha, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting
and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art and Anne Byrd, an art historian and writer based in
Brooklyn, New York, which combines biographical information with focused discussions of selected
objects. These texts pay particular attention to Orozco’s material practice and introduce the
artist’s own reflections on the work he has made. It is published by The Museum of Modern Art
and is available at the MoMA Stores and online at www.momastore.org. It is distributed to the
trade through Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P) in the United States and Canada, and Thames +
Hudson outside North America. Hardcover: 256 pages; 500 color illustrations. $55.
The exhibition will travel to the Kunstmuseum Basel, where it will be on view from April 18 to
August 10, 2010; and the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, where
it will be on view from September 15, 2010 to January 3, 2011, and the Tate Modern, where it will
be on view from January 19 to April 25, 2011.
Major support for the exhibition is provided by the National Council for Culture and the Arts
(CONACULTA), and Fundación Televisa, Mexico.
Additional funding is provided by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary
Art through the Annenberg Foundation and by Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley.
Image: Mobile Matrix. (Detail.) 2006. Graphite on gray whale skeleton 6' 5 3/16" x 35' 8 ¾" x 8' 8 ¾" (196 x 1089 x 266 cm)
Biblioteca Vasconcelos, Mexico City ©2009 Gabriel Orozco
Press contact:
Meg Blackburn, (212) 708-9757, meg_blackburn@moma.org
Press Preview: Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
The Museum of Modern Art
The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Gallery, sixth floor
11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019
Hours: Wednesday through Monday: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday: 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
Closed Tuesday
Museum Admission: $20 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with
current I.D. Free for children 16 and under. Free for members.
Admission includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs.
Free admission during Target Free Friday Nights 4:00-8:00 p.m.