PENSKE WORK PROJECT: BLACK AND WHITE GAME
1998
CARDBOARD BOX; PLASTICENE
2 1/2 X 16 1/4 X 13 IN. ( 6.4 X 41.3 X 33 CM )
Thousands of objects Orozco collected from two separate sites: a sports field near his New York home and a wildlife reserve on the coast of Baja California Sur, the latter of which happens to enjoy a constant flow of industrial backwash from across the Pacific that every so often yields bits of aesthetically pleasing detritus.
Sandstars, to the back of the photo above, is a sculptural taxonomy of Orozco’s Mexican beach finds: nearly 1,200 glass bottles, lightbulbs, buoys, tools, stones, and oars sorted by color, shape, and material.
Astroturf Constellation, whose elements were harvested from the playing field occupying New York’s Pier 40, functions similarly to Sandstar but at the comparably diminutive scale of coins, ripped-off sneaker logos, soccer ball bits, feathers, candy wrappers, chewing gum wads, and tiny tangles of thread. Orozco combed the field’s Astroturf for these weird souvenirs of athleticism, breaking the world of sport down to its smallest, most idiosyncratic elements and then challenging your eyes to put them back together again, kind of like that famous Volkswagen parts ad or a Todd McLellan photograph.
The show’s curators say the two works invoke “several of the artist’s recurring motifs, including the traces of erosion” and “the ever-present tension between nature and culture.” But for us, it’s all about how Orozco captures “poetic encounters with mundane materials,” something any collector or design fan who’s ever inexplicably fallen in love with an everyday object will understand in a heartbeat.
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| sighunseen.com |
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