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David Howard
Kathryn Kelley
ARTS 1315
18 August 2015

Gabriel Orozoco
Gabriel Orozco is a contemporary artist that is not content with sticking to one
medium; he has created numerous drawing, paintings, sculptures, installations,
photographs, and videos. Known as one of the most intriguing and original artists of his
generation (MOMA) Orozco is full of surprises, from simple installations that include
shoeboxes and yogurt lids to sport cars split in half and wielded this artist lives up to his
reputation.
Gabriel Orozco was born in 1962 in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. From 1981
through 1984 he studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plsticas in Mexico City,
shortly after he moved to Madrid where he studied at the Circulo de Bellas Artes from
1986 to 1987. Gabriels career as an artist started in the early nineties, he has exhibited
his work in various museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the
Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Currently Orozco travels
between Paris, New York and Mexico city working and spending time with his wife Maria
Gutierrez and son Simon.
At first I was overwhelmed by his wide body of work but after studying his
exhibition work and pages from his Notebook I noticed some interesting formal themes
that seem to appear in many of Gabriel Orozocos work. The most evident to me is his
constant play with symmetry. I noticed many of his photographs like My Hands Are My
Heart and Horse have obvious symmetry that work well because they cause the subject

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to seem to be in balance between a natural and unnatural state. Symmetry also plays a
huge role in his installation work; Orozoco emphasizes the symmetry in the skeletal
form using graphite line drawings on bone in his two pieces Black Kites and Mobile
Matrix. Not only do the lines successfully emphasize the symmetrical aspects of the
skeleton they also show the relationship between the various bones. One of his most
successful installations also is the best example of symmetry in his work. La Ds is a
Citron DS that Orozoco and an assistant modified by removing the central third of the
car and seamlessly wielding the resulting two parts together. The piece is successful
mostly because of the craftsmanship and the wow factor of seeing something iconic
being drastically changed. Orozoco claims the car is fully functional with the exception
of the engine had to be removed.
Intentional or unintentional, Gabriel Orozoco has some conceptual themes in his
work that make them intriguing. One theme that is evident in his work is death, while in
New York Orozoco was in a period of recovery from a collapsed lung. During this time
he created Black Kites a drawing and sculpture involving a real human skull The artist
used a real human skull because, he was interested in real death rather than its
representation (MOMA). As previously mentioned Black Kites has some strong formal
elements that make it stand out, this graphite drawing on bone also creates a chilling
mood as a reminder that beauty comes with death. Another successful piece that
creates a similar mood is Obit which does so using large paper prints on which
fragments of headlines, recognizably in The New York Times font, float in a sea of
white. Each is a descriptive element from an obituary, and it's affecting and frustrating to
see a lifetime summed up in a single sentence: "ballerina with a comic touch", or

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"painter known on both coasts" (The Independent). This simple yet elegant work
contains many conceptual themes and allows viewers to bring their own experience.
The listings are unique because they do not contain the deceased name or when they
died but only what they were known for. This causes the viewer to look back at their life
and reconsider what they have done if anything to deserve a spot among those
presented to them.
It is very obvious that Gabriel Orozoco is influenced by everything he comes by,
his work takes the world we all know and sometimes love and flips it around and
sometimes backwards in ways that bring new life into familiar subjects. Before having a
son Orozoco lived a nomadic life which greatly influenced his art, he constantly traveled
and literally used whatever was around him to create his art. Since then Orozoco has
settled down with his family but the influences of his past life are still evident.
Gabriel Orozoco is an artist full of wonderful surprises, his work is constantly
changing just as much as his life and location. Refusing to constrain to boundaries or
stereotypes Orozoco has created a wide body of artwork that crosses many boundaries
in not only medium and concept but in appeal. His artwork lives up to the reputation of
being both intriguing and original.

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Works Cited
Carmen Boullosa. Gabriel Orozoco. BOMB 98 (Winter 27): April 2012<http:/bombsite.com>.
Mclean, Laura. Masters of life and death. The Independent January 2011: April 2012
<http:/www.independent.co.uk>
MOMA. The Museum of Modern Art, 2009. Web. April 2012.<http:/www.moma.com>
PBS. Art in the Twenty First Century, 2001-2012. Web. April 2012.<http:/www.pbs.org/art21>

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