An exhibition of recent works by the Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, his first one-person exhibition in the United States, was organized by Lynn Zelevansky at the Museum of Modern Art, as part of its continuing Projects series.
The exhibition comprises work from the last three years, including sculptural objects which are installed on and between the three levels of the Museum’s Garden Hall, as well as in the Sculpture Garden. Several photographs documenting ephemeral pieces created from found objects and unexpected juxtapositions are presented in a dialogue with the sculptural objects. The pieces unfold in a fragmented echo, interacting and pulsating in a “geography of time”, discovering and hiding the relationship of the determined object to its exterior, to its referential effects. Orozco engages in a double gesture: isolating in order to shelter.
This exhibition, in a sense, was conceived as a single work.
Some pieces are installed in secret spaces, even outside the museum structure, unfolding a fragmented totality.
Orozco’s practice is articulated or deferred according to com plex networks. A resonance between the objects, with their gestural utterance, echoes their articulation and surroundings.
On the second floor, Naturaleza Recuperada relates to Rodin’s Balzac in the garden and to the installation Home Run: oranges have been placed in some of the windows of the buildings facing the Museum’s Sculpture Garden.
The curved line of Hamaca colgando entre dos rascacielos (Hammock Hanging Between Two Skyscrapers) installed be tween two trees in the Sculpture Garden, alludes to the motion of Tono de Marcar (Dial Tone). Fragments of three scrolls com posed of pages from the telephone books of New York City, Mexico City, and Monterrey (México) are installed in the area that separates the up and down escalators between floors.
As one rides the escalator, it is not possible to read the names and the numbers. There is a rupture of time, hiding what it reveals, withholding its own meaning. In a personal territory of time and space, Orozco’s objects are repatriated and inscribed in a fragmented echo of tactile and visual images. Is the linguistic practice the last connection to nature? Orozco’s work is signed with a non-signing signature: it is the seal of the non-sealed.
MARINA URBACH