Saturday, April 5, 2025

Artist of the Day, April 5, 2025: Gabriel Orozco, a Mexican artist, painter, sculptor, photographer (#2251)

Gabriel Orozco (1962) is a Mexican artist. He gained his reputation in the early 1990s for his exploration of drawing, photography, sculpture and installation. In 1998, Francesco Bonami called Orozco "one of the most influential artists of this decade, and probably the next one too."

Early life and education
Orozco was born in 1962 in Veracruz, Mexico to Cristina Félix Romandía and Mario Orozco Rivera, a mural painter and art professor at the University of Veracruz.[citation needed] When Orozco was six, the family relocated to the San Ángel neighborhood of Mexico City so that his father could work with artist David Alfaro Siquieros on various mural commissions. His father took him along to museum exhibitions and to work with him, during which time Orozco overheard many conversations about art and politics.

Orozco attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas between 1981 and 1984 but found the program too conservative.[citation needed] In 1986, he moved to Madrid and enrolled at the Circulo de Bellas Artes.[citation needed] There his instructors introduced him to a broad range of post-war artists who were working in non-traditional formats. He said of his time in Spain,
    "What's important is to be confronted deeply with another culture. And also to feel that I am the Other, not the resident. That I am the immigrant. I was displaced and in a country where the relationship with Latin America is conflicted. I came from a background that was very progressive. And then to travel to Spain and confront a very conservative society that also wanted to be very avant-garde in the 1980s, but treated me as an immigrant, was shocking. That feeling of vulnerability was really important for developing my work. I think a lot of my work has to do with that kind of exposure, to expose vulnerability and make that your strength."

Career
In 1987, Orozco returned from his studies in Madrid to Mexico City, where he hosted weekly meetings with a group of other artists including Damián Ortega, Gabriel Kuri, Abraham Cruzvillegas and Dr. Lakra. This group met once a week for five years and over time the artist's home became a place where many artistic and cultural projects took shape.

Orozco's nomadic way of life began to inform his work strongly around this time, and he took considerable inspiration from exploring the streets. His early practice was intended to break away from the mainstream work of the 1980s, which was often created in huge studios with many assistants and elaborate techniques of production and distribution. In contrast, Orozco typically worked alone or with one or two other assistants. His work revolves around many repeated themes and techniques that incorporate real life and common objects. The exploration of his chosen materials allows the audience's imagination to explore the creative associations between oft-ignored objects in today's world.

In 1995 he worked in Berlin on a Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst grant.

 "For him [Orozco], the decentralization of the manufacturing practice mirrors a rich heterogeneity of object and material. There is no way to identify a work by Orozco in terms of physical product. Instead it must be discerned through leitmotifs and strategies that constantly recur, but in always mutating forms and configurations." – Ann Temkin
© 2025. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Gabriel Orozco  or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only

Gabriel Orozco
Two Couples, 1990-91
Pulpo (Octopus), 199
Mi Oficina II (My Office II), 1992

 La DS, 1993
Four Bicycles (There is Always One Direction), 1994
Ball on Water, 1994
Horses Running Endlessly, 1995
 Comedor en Tepoztlán (Dining Room in Tepoztlán), 1995
Sand on Table, 1995
Atomist: Making Strides, 1996
Atomists series, 1996
Atomists: Offside, 1996
Parachute in Iceland (East), 1996
Kiss of the Egg, 1998
Nike Town, 1998
Ping Pond Table, 1998
Ping Pond Table, 1998
Kytes Tree, 2005
 Samurai Tree (Invariant 5), 2005
Dark Wave, 2006
Broken Bicycle on a Railing, 2011
Astroturf Constellation, 2012 
Sandstars, 2012
Sandstars, 2012
Sxhibition Chicotes, 2013 Installation view
Piñanona, 2013 
One is Many, 2014
Glass maze, 2015

Friday, April 4, 2025

Artist of the Day, April 4, 2025: Christian Rogers, an American emerging artist, painter (#2250)

Christian Rogers was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He received his BFA from Western Oregon University and his Master’s from Hunter College in New York City. Christian has been living and working in Los Angeles since 2017

Christian Rogers uses paint, collage and sculpted surfaces to explore themes of unabashed queer love, lust and joy. Half grounded in reality, the other half in fantasy, Christian depicts Garden of Eden-like landscapes where endless visual and visceral titillation take place. Men wander the vast floral playground looking for fun, taking part in the liberation and the nitrite rush of queer romance.

Sculpted forms bubble from the surface, resembling the curves of a pectoral muscle or chiseled bicep, and over the bodily shapes, layers of fluorescent paint function like skin. The collaged men in the paintings are found objects sourced from vintage porn, included in the mise en scène as a means of preserving our collective queer history. While being vessels of desire, the men represent a way of remembering and memorializing our forefathers who came before us—many of whom lost their lives to HIV/AIDS during the height of the crisis. Christian’s paintings are at once an incandescent manifestation of queer bliss, an act of historical reclamation and an illustration of the erotic utopia of which he dreams
.   

 © 2025. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Christian Rogers or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only

Christian Rogers
Stud Force, 2024
Bad Boys Dormitory, 2024
Untitled, 2023
Untitled (Sunflower), 2023
Untitled (Morning Glory), 2023
Untitled (Large Sunflower), 2023
The Blue Rose, 2022
Gay Cruise Line, 2022
By Invitation Only, 2022
Untitled, 2021
Lovers Banquet, 2021
 Coach's Detention, 2021
Untitled, 2020
Untitled, 2020
Untitled, 2020
Untitled, 2020
Untitled, 2020
Untitled, 2020
Untitled, (Butt Buddies), 2020
The Gaurd & the Rose, 2020
Shape Shifters, 2020
Untitled, 2019
Untitled, 2017
Still Life with Poppers II, 2017