Below is a transcript of a performance presentation about the life of artist Gabriel Orozco. It was given in the form of an interview. My classmate, Megan was the interviewer and I was Mr. Orozco.
Megan: Today I am here with Gabriel Orozco [pronounce wrong]. We are lucky enough to have him here while we explore who he is as an artist and a person.
Sarah: Actually, my name is pronounced GAH-briel Or-ROZ-co. But most people are unsure of how to speak it correctly anyways. Thank you for having me here today.
Megan: To begin, tell me a little about your childhood. Where did you grow up? Was family a big part of your life?
Sarah: I was born in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico on April 27, 1962. My father was the largest influence on me becoming the artist I am – he himself was a mural painter and an art professor at the Universidad Veracruzana. He took me to museum exhibitions and his workplace often. I was very exposed to this culture at a very young age and that was important.
Megan: How about your family currently?
Sarah: My wife, Maria, is a large influence in my life. She is always there for my crazy antics. One time I rearranged items in a grocery store while she was shopping. I was juxtaposing different items next to each other and recording people’s reactions since I was bored. She calls it my curiosity. We have been married for almost 20 years now and I still don’t know how she calls it a curiosity but I guess that is how you can tell she still loves me. She can put up with it all. We also have a son together, Simón, who will be nine this November. It’s hard but they are worth it.
Megan: Since you are a travelling artist with a family, how do you make that work?
Sarah: I live and work in New York, Mexico, and France, splitting my time between the three. I see and travel with my family as often as possible.
Megan: Good to know that you are still making a living as a successful working artist. Other than the education of the arts you received from your father, that you mentioned previously, do you have any formal training?
Sarah: Yes. From 1981-84, I attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas. In ’86 I then moved to Madrid, Spain where I was introduced to working in non-traditional media. It was here that I found my passion for the unconventional.
Megan: You mentioned you like to work in non-traditional media. Can you expunge on this at all?
Sarah: I don’t really have a technique. I just have many different ways to work. I really enjoy using media that is accessible to my audience. I have worked in sculpture, video, photography, installation and drawing. I also try and use tools everybody can use. I try and not be an expert at any one material because I like to show that anybody can use the materials I work with. I do tend to work a lot with found objects though. A lot of my influences in my work come from my Mexican heritage and the ideas of conceptualism and even the Dada movement. Though I say this, I don’t like to be defined by any one material or aesthetic of an end product. It is more seen as recurring themes in my art of mutating forms and configuring them for my own intentions.
Megan: You seem to sort of go wherever you feel the need to with your art. Why do you think this is? Is there a particular influence you have in your life for creating your artwork?
Sarah: I love to use urban landscapes as a starting point for a lot of my art. I am very inspired by the world around me. I use my camera as a way to keep myself aware – it’s an excuse to look around the places I am. With this, I choose not to have a studio. I feel that it is an artificial place that is static and very removed. This forces me to be outdoors and explore my resources. I love creating and using cultural objects and comparing different ideals with them.
Take La DS for example. In 1993, I travelled to France and reconstructed a 1950s classic French automobile. After extensive sketches and planning, I spliced the car into three parts, removing the inner most section and then connecting the other two.
Megan: How do you plan for your installations and sculptures?
Sarah: I never would have gotten to the end product I wanted with this piece without the pre-planning I had accomplished. The shape should represent what just happened before – in regards to the process of its creation – in both the planning and creation. I wanted the integrity of the form to remain so the connection to its original form was still made. There is a notion that this piece is still drivable and that is exactly what I was going for. La DS can be seen as piece of commentary on the mechanical object a car is. But it can also be seen as being elevated to the status of an icon. I love pointing out the things in life we take for granted.
One last thing that influences me: space. This is perhaps the most important underlying current in all of my artwork. Physical space is obviously more tangibly measurable no matter how thin, but mental and emotional space causes us to be so much more aware of ourselves and the influences around us. It’s these ideas of space that that influence me as a sculptor.
Megan: What do you want viewer’s to take away from your artwork?
Sarah: What is most important is not so much what people see in the gallery or the museum, but what people see after looking at these things, how they confront reality again. I have an obsession of building bridges of communication with people. I hopefully use my artwork to do this.
Megan: Before, you mentioned your piece La DS. Can you describe a few of your other pieces?
Sarah: Of course. I think one of my most memorable pieces would be Black Kites. Made in 1997 out of a human skull and graphite, it embraces geometry and pattern, juxtaposing the organic form of the human anatomy with the simple geometrical form of the checkerboard pattern. Even though you can only see this picture in 2-D form, you can still gauge the three-dimensional form of the piece. The ambiguity in this piece also lends itself to the viewer’s really interpreting the meaning for themselves. It speaks to different cultures and people’s experiences and (hopefully) strips the human race of individual identity making people question who this person could’ve been and representing all of humanity with this face.
Megan: How about an example of another one of your installations?
Sarah: Another piece I created was Ping Pond Table in 1998. I’ve always been interested in games. And with my thoughts on space, I wanted to alter the space in which the game was played and also alter the space in which the players interact with the game and each other. So I created a pond in the middle of two split up Ping-Pong tables to create a different space and interpretation of what space and dividing space is. People can take what the new space is as they want – it’s what I want them to do.
Megan: Your artwork is very conceptual and I think that speaks very well to your audiences. Can you speak a little bit about the places you’ve exhibited your art?
Sarah: Currently I am represented by the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, and Galeria Kurimanzutto in Mexico City. I am very fortunate to be a part of all of these galleries. I have also exhibited in places such as the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Hishhorn Museum in Washington D.C. I’ve also been chosen to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York and the Venice Biennale in Italy. These last two events are held every two years for contemporary artists to exhibit world in a collective, collaborative setting in all media from fine art, to film, to dance.
Megan: Many critics say that your work has become less provocative and thought inducing in recent years. What do you think of this?
Sarah: I think it is important for working artists to take critiques seriously but not too influentially on their work. I am a working artist for a reason still. Clearly people like something about my art still whether its concepts and aesthetics have changed as of late or not. Personally I do not think my art has gotten any less thought provoking.
Megan: Thank you so much for meeting with me today. I have one last question to wrap this interview up: What legacy do you want to create for future generations?
Sarah: I want people to remember me for allowing them to question their realities and change how they view the world around them constantly. I want people to be inspired to be inspired by everyday items as much as I am. Whether people like my work or not, I want people to take that away with them.
Sarah Kedzior 