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Gabriel Orozco Floating Sinking Shell 2 2004 plaster and shell 5 x 12 x 12 in. (12.7 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm) Signed and dated “Gabriel Orozco 2004” on the underside of the plaster element.
Provenance Marian Goodman Gallery, New York Exhibited New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Gabriel Orozco December 13, 2009 - March 1, 2010; Kunst Museum Basel, April 18-August 10, 2010: Musée National d’Arte Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, September 15, 2010 - January 3, 2011; and Tate Modern, London, January 19 - April 25, 2011 Literature A. Temkin, Gabriel Orozco New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 2009, p. 197 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Sudden illumination is possible, but you have to know how to pay attention to it and separate it from everything else, because it passes by in an instant. Some works require it, others don’t… but an artist has to find his or her own scale. A special effect isn’t all that matters. The littlest things in life can be charged with meaning. Gabriel Orozoco (Taken from an interview with Carmen Boullosa, Bomb Magazine, Issue 9 [Winter 2007]). The grand scope of Gabriel Orozco’s oeuvre has established him as one of the world’s leading preceptors of reality. His immensely varied work seeks to reassess and ultimately reform our consciousness of what is present in our human universe. With a sense of playfulness and enthusiasm, Orozco reshapes and resizes the decoration of our everyday lives. From cutting and gluing actual automobiles to gathering the detritus of the street in a clay ball, Orozco’s mediums are always the material inhabitants of our world rather than models or approximations. We see Orozco, in the present lot, again making use of a molding medium. Floating Sinking Shell 2, 2004, exhibits equal amounts of artistic simplicity and gorgeous innovation. Within a convex mold of common plaster, left to dry flat on top, we behold the curious involvement of a seashell. The shell’s composition is nothing less than extraordinary, as its variegated surface closely resembles that of the smooth plaster. This symbiotic chromatic relationship serves both to enhance the rich textural surface of the shell itself and to lend the placid surface of the mold a remarkable sense of calm, as if the shell floating upon it were one with its sticky binding. Yet Orozco’s sculpture is not only rich for its silk aesthetics or its textural sumptuousness; with his title—Floating Sinking Shell—Orozco tempts us to view the position of the shell in the plaster as somewhat of a paradox. The plaster oozes into the recesses of the shell, flooding the open chambers with heavy matter. Yet, as we view the hardened totality of the sculpture, the shell is stuck forever between sinking to alabaster depths and rising above the weight of a liquid prison. Orozco charges the present lot with meaning, reminding us that a simple contradiction can house the molding of significance. Read More Artist Bio Gabriel Orozco Mexican • 1954 Gabriel Orozco's diverse practice, which includes sculpture, photography, painting and video, is centered on the rejection of the concept of a traditional studio. Alternatively, Orozco's conceptual process involves using quotidian objects as commentary on urban society. In the widely exhibited La DS (1993), Orozco cut a Citroën DS car into thirds, eliminating the central section and reconfiguring the remaining parts. Another important motif in Orozco's lexicon is that of the colored ellipses. In his seminal series, Samurai Tree Invariants, the artist employs fragmented colored circles as the basis for geometric compositions, exploring the movements made by a knight on a chessboard. These not only represent Orozco's conceptual practices but illustrate his interest in both the geometric and organic world. View More Works