Contrary to one writer’s opinion, Gabriel Orozco is a Mexican who can make pottery. After seeing Peter Schjeldahl’s misguided critique of Orozco’s work at Documenta 11 cited on ArtKrush to support an even broad(er)side on the state of contemporary art, I have to call bulls*** [Sorry, Mom.] on the whole thing.
Orozco’s Documenta 11 installation, Cazuelas (Beginnings), is comprised of “thrown” clay bowls. While the clay was still wet, Orozco threw smaller balls of clay into the bowls, where they were embedded like embryos in a uterine wall. The artist left deep fingermarks on the rims of some bowls, traces of where he lifted or deformed the “finished” product. Regarding this work, Schjeldahl claims Orozco’s “lively formal ideas are blunted by the artist’s rudimentary skills.” Zooming out, this supposed failure, then, “makes the point that in today’s convulsive world everyone must learn new things. I was obliged to include myself: a New York art critic who left Kassel feeling uncomfortably marginalized.” Well, if you’re marginalized, please don’t blame it on Gabriel Orozco, whose work is, in fact, the exact opposite of “blunted,” “rudimentary,” and a “first effort.” Beginnings extends ideas and techniques Orozco has been working with for over ten years: the transformation of the humblest material by the touch, gesture, or glance of the artist.
At frenchculture.org is an image of My Hands are My Heart, a 1991 work where Orozco cradles a transformed ball of clay in his hands. Here is an image of Made in Belgium, which was shown in Orozco’s seminal 1993 exhibit at Galerie Chantal Crousel (which also included La DS, his famously altered Citroen). Just before these roof tiles entered the kiln, Orozco grabbed and distorted them, leaving his gesture (and even his fingerprints) on the clay. And in 1999, he showed Pinched, seductive aluminum forms cast from heavily kneaded clay. Orozco’s work at Documenta is more a culmination than a first effort, and his skills are anything but rudimentary; they’ve been honed in the public eye for at least eleven years. So if you’re looking to throw something at contemporary art, don’t take aim at Gabriel Orozco; you’ll wind up hitting yourself.
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the making of, by greg allen