Gabriel Orozco
New York, The Museum of Modern Art


As the first major museum retrospective for this mid-career artist, it was exactly sixteen years ago that at the age of just 31 years Orozco was invited to participate in one of the Museum of Modern Art’s projects. His work now returns, having amassed two decades of additional work in sculpture, drawing, photography, painting, and installation across some 80 pieces.

Born in Jalapa, Mexico in 1962, Orozco’s career is one of continuing innovation. His work often begins with a ready-made object upon which he makes tangential commentaries on the objects’ principal identity and in response to a specific site or occasion.

Accompanying in-house exhibitions include, on MoMA’s sixth floor, Mobile Matrix (2006), which makes its debut outside its permanent home in the Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City. It is a monumental sculpture composed of a reassembled gray-whale skeleton excavated from the Isla Arena in Baja California Sur. Also, on the second floor with the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, is Samurai Tree Invariants (2006), comprising a digital-print installation and computer animation, acquired for the Museum’s collection in 2008. This is a quintessential example if the artists favored use of cirlces, a theme that runs across the diverse mediums used in his cleverly unified creation.

December 13th, 2009 through March 1st, 2010
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
T. +1 212 708-9400