Gabriel Orozco

Gabriel Orozco
One Printed Page 1: Gabriel Orozco, 2004
4466-PR

This edition launched "One Printed Page," an occasional series of printed ephemera and small prints published by the Library Council. To begin the series, and to mark the opening of the Museum's new building in November 2004, Gabriel Orozco created Untitled, an etching with chine collé. Untitled combines visual complexity with conceptual clarity to achieve an ambiguous image rooted in both abstraction and representation. The work presents a maze of surfaces and densities, symmetries and asymmetries, chambers and diagrams. Embedded in a black square erratically crossed with horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines, a series of concentric rings converge on a central circle enclosed by mandorlas that stretch across the field's cardinal axes to its edges. Evoking the human eye, this central matrix emerges out of, and grounds, competing geometric orders. Gabriel Orozco was born in Mexico in 1962 and currently lives in Paris. The Museum of Modern Art first presented his work in 1993, in Projects 41: Gabriel Orozco, the artist's first one-person exhibition in the United States; since then he has exhibited widely in international venues. Orozco’s work is held in the Museum's collection in the departments of Drawings, Painting and Sculpture, Photography, and Prints and Illustrated Books. Jacob Samuel proofed the hard-ground etching with Orozco in Paris and printed the edition of 200 copies at Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica, California. The image, measuring 6" x 6", was printed on Shikibu black Gampi paper and pressed to a sheet of Magnani Pescia paper. For One Printed Page 1, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art provided essential funds for travel.

Price Upon Request

Gabriel Orozco
Polvo Impreso (Lint Book), 2002
13158-BK

17 x 15 in. (43.2 x 38.1 cm)

Santa Monica. Edition Jacob Samuel. 12 soft ground etchings with chine collé by Gabriel Orozco, printed on Fabriano Tiepolo and natural Gampi paper. Two letterpress sheets with artist’s text in in Spanish and English. Original grey cloth, lettering in black. Card slipcase.

Gabriel Orozco’s famously used swaths of fluffy grey lint collected from New York laundromats, and strung it on wires across gallery spaces, like lines of surreal washing. With this human detritus – the skin and hair that form the lint – Orozco invites us to see its possibilities as sculptural material, and to note its varying textures and subtle vestigial color. The verbal word play around something as insubstantial as washing machine effluvia is typical of Orozco’s game-playing inclinations.
The soft ground etchings made from pressing the lint onto printing plates are surprisingly beautiful, whilst also demonstrating Orozco’s predisposition for non-art materials. Published in an edition of 25 copies (+ 7 artist proofs), numbered and signed by Orozco, this one of the 10 bound copies (the remaining 15 copies were issued in loose portfolios).

Price Upon Request

Gabriel Orozco
Triunfo de la libertad No. 18, 1995
1966

Gabriel Orozco is a Mexican artist who works with objects, often found, sometimes made, to create sculptures and installations in the gallery and the landscape. He frequently works with man-made and natural objects together, playing off the meanings of each against the other. He uses photography both to document his work and also as a finished product. His pieces are in many ways the antithesis of traditions of monumental sculpture. They seem to work on the senses and emotions, often creeping up on you like a gentle reminder or whispered enquiry. They can be both touching and humourous. They play with the meanings of objects in spaces, where a slight shift in context can highlight elements of the formal qualities of the piece as well as raising social, cultural and philosophical issues. While the lyrical beauty of many of his pieces is apparent there is frequently another layer of meaning which addresses questions such as commodity culture, industrial production and ecological damage and the cultural and economic tensions between the North and South of America.

Price Upon Request