Gabriel Orozco

This major survey shows installations, sculptures, photographs, paintings and drawings by Gabriel Orozco (born 1962 in Mexico), created since the early 1990s. Orozco, one of the world’s foremost contemporary artists, commutes between New York, Paris and Mexico-City. The nomadic way of life typical of his generation and the principle of constant movement surface in his work in many different ways, ranging from the photograph of his breath on a piano to a Citroën DS that has been sliced lengthwise down the middle and reassembled as a one seater. Orozco has a penchant for exploiting the expressive artistic potential that lies in the ephemeral. He directs his attention to inconspicuous situations and materials, showing a light-footed ease and subtlety in combining and reconfiguring them within the larger context. Throughout, it is the nomadic and the readiness to embrace the moment that coalesce into visual artifacts, as in the Working Tables, 1991–2006, from the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel. Uniting a wide variety of small sculptures and found pieces, these works, made in Mexico-City, are a cross between workshop and worldview, testifying to the untold varieties of organic change and energetic verve characteristic of Orozco’s approach. The exhibition is organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Basel, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and Tate Modern, London.