Basel, Kunstmuseum

April 18 through August 8, 2010
Sankt Alban-Graben 16
4051 Basel
+41 61 206 62 62
www.kunstmuseumbasel.ch

This major survey at Kunstmuseum Basel 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.

While the earliest works on view were still made in Mexico, to which he regularly returns, the context of Gabriel Orozco’s art since 1992 has been the accelerated throwaway society of North America and Western Europe, particularly New York and Paris.He has a penchant for exploiting the expressive artistic potential that lies in ephemeral encounters with life on the streets, wherever he may be.

Orozco’s work famously covers a wide spectrum, which is on display here from a photograph of his his breath on a piano, to a Citroën DS, sliced lengthwise down the middle and reassembled as a one seater. These experiments with the things of everyday life and with sculptural processes are a cross between workshop and worldview.