Damián Ortega "Capital Less”
Gladstone Gallery (Chelsea 21th Street)
This event has ended.
Beginning his career as a political cartoonist, Ortega teases out the social conflicts embedded in even the most banal objects. In his films, sculptures, and other works he deconstructs the economic and political relationships bound together in commodities ranging from automobiles to tools. The creation of these whimsical new spatial relationships reacts with the viewer to establish a demystified reading of the history of the object leaving only its social significations intact.
In this new body of work, Ortega created a series of concrete and brick blocks by pressure sanding them into irregular shapes. Equating the loss of material with both geological erosion and the waste of capital, Ortega conflates the action of creating sculpture with an economics of positive and negative spaces. In this case, the economic structure is contingent with form and the process of creating sculpture.
Media
Schedule
from September 17, 2009 to October 31, 2009