DAMIÁN ORTEGA
CHAMP DE VISION
12 November 2008 – 9 February 2009
ESPACE 315, LEVEL 1
Born in Mexico City in 1967, Damián Ortega is the first Latin American artist to show in Espace 315. One of the leading members of the rising artistic generation in Mexico, he first came to widespread attention at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, with Cosmic Thing, a Volkswagen Beetle dismantled and suspended from the ceiling, an ironic deconstruction of one of the cult objects of Mexican consumer culture.
Ortega began his career drawing political cartoons and his work is always marked by a certain acerbic playfulness. With irreverent eye, he parodies the purity of Minimalist sculpture. His sculptures, photographs and action pieces, which often make use of commonplace objects, suggest a potential for development and perpetual change. A certain scepticism regarding the utopian forms of Modernist architecture and a distinct fondess for language games are also central to his work.
For Espace 315, Damián Ortega has created an installation that operates as a camera obscura.
At the entrance is a wall drawing of molecular structures, while in the central space 6000 coloured modules are suspended from the ceiling. At the far end of the room, visitors pass behind a partition, from where they view the installation through a lens. Once again deploying the principle of fragmentation and spatial dispersion of forms, here Ortega allows viewers to experience the very process of perception that links eye to brain.
PUBLICATION
Damián Ortega
Collection Espace 315
Directed by Anna Hiddleston and Françoise Bertaux
Artist’s book by Damián Ortega, composed from colour images related to the piece presented in Espace 315
Text by Christine Macel
Interview with Damián Ortega by Anna Hiddleston and Sinziana Ravini
Éditions du Centre Pompidou
17 x 22 cm, 104 pages
bilingual french/ english
Centre Pompidou
Place Georges Pompidou, Paris, 75004
