Gabriel Orozco

This is the first exhibition at the new White Cube space in Mason’s Yard in the West End.  This new space is much bigger than its Hoxton counterpart, but has a very similar look and feel to it, having been designed by the same firm of architects. 

The gallery displays work by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco. Downstairs, the basement space has been filled with the bones of a14 metre skeleton of a roqual whale.  Suspended from the ceiling, the entire uneven surface of the whale, entitled Dark Wave, has been drawn all over by the artist.  Black graphite marks, arcs and lines, spin out from pivotal points on the skeleton in concentric circles. Orozco describes this process as one which creates a ‘topology of the object’.  His intricate geometric patterns map do not, however, simply sit on top of the frame of the animal, and adorn it or describe its surface, more they also tattoo it with a series of new references and possibilities.

The ground floor features 12 new paintings, part of the ongoing Samurai Tree series.  Theses paintings all feature a range of circles, whole, bisected, halved or quartered, all emanating out from the centre and reaching to the edge of the picture.  Each is painted directly onto red cedar panels, and features the same colour scheme; gold leaf, red white and blue egg tempura.  The colours have been traditionally applied and show us a range of possibilities created by increasing or decreasing the circle size in a movement made in accordance with the rules followed by the knight in a game of chess.  Facing each other around all four walls, each painting fits neatly into the series.  More though, the geometric forms have a dynamism and a sense of movement within them so that the tactical manoeuvres become tangible on each individual pieces as well as across the works.   

TW