Gabriel Orozco
19 January – 25 April 2011
Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG
His sculptures, often made of everyday things that have interested him, reveal new ways of looking at something familiar. A skull with a geometric pattern carefully drawn onto it, a classic Citroën DS car which the artist sliced into thirds, removing the central part to exaggerate its streamlined design, and a scroll filled with numbers cut out of a phone book are just some of his unique sculptures.
Orozco’s photos are also on display, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments: water collecting in a punctured football, tins of cat food arranged on top of watermelons in a supermarket, or condensed breath disappearing from the surface of a piano show Orozco’s eye for simple but surprising and powerful images.
His art also shows his fascination with game-playing, for example a billiard table with no pockets and a pendulum-like hanging ball, or Knights Running Endlessly, an extended chess board filled with an army of horses, both of which are well-known games to which he has added an element of futility. This kind of unexpected twist makes Orozco’s work interesting to both contemporary art lovers and also anyone who wants an unusual and captivating art experience.
Exhibition organised by The Museum of Modern Art, New York in association with Tate Modern. Global exhibition sponsor: Fundación Televisa and the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA), Mexico. Supported at Tate by Tate International Council and The Gabriel Orozco Exhibition Supporters Group. Media partner: The Independent
Book now at www.tate.org.uk
*Image above:
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Gift (by exchange) of Mr. and Mrs. James P. Magill, 1997.
© Courtesy of the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; and kurimanzutto, Mexico City.
