Gabriel Orozco
1962–
Gabriel Orozco first gained renown in the early 1990s, when he developed an itinerant poststudio practice consisting largely of improvised, site-responsive interventions and became part of a globalized network of artists whose work has been loosely classified as Relational Aesthetics. He is known for engaging his (often urban) surroundings by activating materials he encounters on the street and creating improvised arrangements of found objects. Although such impromptu tableaux are inherently ephemeral, the artist has frequently used them as the basis for photographs that function as autonomous images rather than as mere documents of his original compositions.
Orozco created his four-part photographic series Parachute in Iceland in October 1996 for a two-person show with Rirkrit Tiravanija at the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik. The series features a parachute Orozco purchased from an Army-Navy surplus store on New York’s Canal Street, photographed within a barren Icelandic landscape. After anchoring its strings to the ground, he released the bright white fabric form and captured it from all four cardinal directions. In Parachute in Iceland (South) it is pictured head-on, the taut fabric forming a near perfect circle against the horizon line. The composition recalls the circular motif that has appeared repeatedly in Orozco’s work since the early 1990s, while the photograph serves as a record of the artist’s site-specific action. As Orozco noted, “Not having a technique that is always the same and not having a proper studio makes me focus on the moment I’m living in and the place I’m living in, which I then try to use to make the work.”
Introduction
Gabriel Orozco (born April 27, 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."
Wikidata identifier
Q1242404
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed July 19, 2025.
Introduction
Mexican artist, New York City.
Country of birth
Mexico
Roles
Artist, architect, computer artist, conceptual artist, designer, installation artist, media artist, photographer, sculptor, video artist
ULAN identifier
500114732
Names
Gabriel Orozco
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed July 19, 2025.
