Mr. Orozco at the opening

I have been eagerly awaiting this show ever since my encounter with the artist on my trip to Mexico City. Due to the Swine Flu outbreak, I was unable to see his exhibition opening at Kurimanzutto the following day. So, off I headed on opening night to the 2nd and 6th floors of my home away from home…the Museum of Modern Art.

Samurai Tree Invariants

I began on the 2nd floor where the room usually housing prints is filled with Orozco’s “Samurai Tree Invariants.” These are digital prints with “vibrant geometric abstractions previously realized as paintings, drawings, and photocollages.” Consisting of circles on a square background in a restricted palette of blue, red, white, and yellow, he utilizes his common motif, the circle almost as a means of meditation in its creation. 460 permutations are on view in the show.

Born in 1962 in Jalapa, Mexico, Orozco became recognized by the art world  in his early 30s by transforming ordinary objects into works of art to be pondered. In 1993, MoMA asked him to participate in their “Projects Series” which resulted in his first solo show. This current mid-career retrospective highlights two decades of sculpture, drawings, photographs, and paintings. He has worked and loved in Mexico, New York, Paris, and traveled all over the world often creating site-specific works. As the wall text points out, this is the first time that many of these works are in dialogue with each other.

Mobile Matrix in the atrium

On view in the atrium is “Mobile Matrix” from 2006, a sculpture made from a whale skeleton found on the beach in Baja, California. Orozco has described himself as, “a consumer of anything at hand and a producer of what already exists.”

La DS

Hanging four yogurt lids on each wall of a white gallery space, taking the middle section out of a car (”La DS”),

Four Bicycles

or melding bikes together (”Four Bicycles: There Is Always One Direction”) he manipulates objects for reinterpretation. His photos of a mark of breath on a piano lid and an “island within an island” (Jersey walls put together to create an island on the island of Manhattan) demonstrate his humor and wit.

Shoes

Shoes and shoelaces melded together into one object, fired clay body parts, an incised soccer ball all are on display.

Eyes Under Elephant Foot

Detail

“Eyes Under Elephant Foot” consists of a beaucarnea tree trunk and glass eyes which eerily peek out at the viewer.

Working Table

However, my favorite of the works on view is the “working table” in the back gallery. As he has created works in a variety of places, Orozco has not maintained a studio of his own anywhere so his apartment functions as a storage facility with works on shelves, in shoeboxes, etc.

Detail of a Working Table

Since 1996, these “working tables” have been exhibited as works of art which allow the viewer to get an intimate look into the process behind the creation of his art. Included are studies and maquettes for finished works, the beginnings of works that were never realized and found objects.

While I enjoy Orozco’s work immensely, I found this exhibition a bit conservative and staid.  His work usually packs a punch and it lacks some of that power when presented in this way. I am still a fan though and look forward to seeing more of his work in the future, just not all jammed into a multitude of white cubes.