Ariel Orozco | FEDERICA SCHIAVO GALLERY
Piazza Montevecchio 16 February 10–March 25
ROME
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The rooms of the gallery appear as chapters of a story narrating the exhaustion of luxury and the unstable relationship between necessity and exploitation. For example, the perfectly contained abundance of desert sand in the 3,400 drinking glasses of Untitled (Sed) (Untitled [Thirst]), which are placed on the floor in shapes that recall continents and islands, paradoxically evokes privation and loss. The distinct missing element of water appears here, surprisingly, in a large beach ball in Oceano (Ocean). The work presents one of our major natural––and increasingly scarce––resources as unreachable.A precarious installation of a gray Faber-Castell colored pencil balancing on its tip on a corner of this gallery’s reception desk introduces the viewer to Ariel Orozco’s “Detrás del cristal” (Behind the Crystal). Seized in place, Gris(Gray) (all works 2012) imparts the first statement of this fluid and complex show, which explores the paradoxes and contradictions within neoliberal society.
Nearby, sixty drains of various sizes are installed in the floor while only one plug, which might stop a potential inundation, is obtainable. Untitled (Problema) (Untitled [Problem]) highlights the impossibility of finding a single solution to the multitude of problems caused by the constant capitalization of Earth’s resources. Another, untitled, work features a firework resting on the ground. Here the spectator is faced with the latent danger bound in this solitary article. Through such subtle interventions, Orozco’s show offers a general sense of uncertainty, of our precarious current situation, and perhaps of our future condition.
— Ilaria Gianniwww.artforum.co
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