An exhibition of new work by renowned Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco is currently on show at Marian Goodman’s London Gallery — the artist’s first exhibition in London since the 2011 retrospective at Tate Modern. Orozco is best known for his experimentations with found objects, which he subtly alters, as well as the iterant nature of his practice which takes him around the world where he finds inspiration in foreign cultures.The exhibition at Marian Goodman features a series of new paintings, scrolls, sculptures, drawings, and photographs made over the last year in Mexico and Japan. The majority of the works were created in Japan where Orozco took up residence in 2015. Drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, Orozco has created a body of work that continues his exploration of symmetry, indulges his fascination with circles, and further develops his ongoing experimentation with found objects.“It is important to understand where these materials came from, what they were designed for and how I try to give their intrinsic structure a new way of functioning, metaphoric on the one hand, but also utilitarian and in some way real. To continue and extend the possibilities of the historical and mythic content of those objects and not just their mechanical structure,” said the artist in a lecture at Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, on January 30, 2001.The highlight of Orozco’s new body of work is a series of collages on traditional scrolls which feature cut and spliced antique Japanese textiles. Also included in the exhibition also includes a series of paintings featuring a mechanized spirographic repetition of a circular grid; a series of wooden totemic sculptures made from drawing, painting, and collaging found local materials, such as packaging material and other detritus of urban Tokyo; as well as a number of wonderfully spontaneous iPhone photos that memorialize fleeting moments from his nomadic lifestyle.“I think that art makes a person feel individual and conscious and there is awareness in the moment of the contact with art,” Orozco explained in a video interview with the Tate. “I like to think that every piece I do, it needs concentration to be understood, to see it clearly, to understand what is behind the gesture in my work that sometimes looks too easy or banal.”“Gabriel Orozco” is at Marian Goodman Gallery London until August 7, 2015.
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