Orozco, Untitled Photographs from 'Gabriel Orozco-Triunfo de la Libertad No. 18
Tlalpan, C.P. 14000', 1995 (2)

Gabriel Orozco is a Mexican artist who works with objects, often found, sometimes made, to create sculptures and installations in the gallery and the landscape.He frequently works with man-made and natural objects together, playing off the meanings of each against the other. He uses photography both to document his work and also as a finished product.

His pieces are in many ways the antithesis of traditions of monumental sculpture. They seem to work on the senses and emotions, often creeping up on you like a gentle reminder or whispered enquiry. They can be both touching and humourous. They play with the meanings of objects in spaces, where a slight shift in context can highlight elements of the formal qualities of the piece as well as raising social, cultural and philosophical issues. While the lyrical beauty of many of his pieces is apparent there is frequently another layer of meaning which addresses questions such as commodity culture, industrial production and ecological damage and the cultural and economic tensions between the North and South of America.

"The work is sometimes so discreet that it almost seems not to be there, the inattentive might easily miss it; yet it insists as a quiet presence inhabiting, rather enigmatically, a space and a moment of negotiation between the world and the viewer." Jean Fisher

"A nomad is too glamourous an expression. I am just an immigrant."

Gabriel Orozco

TAKE AN OBJECT FOR A WALK....Many of Orozco's installations and sculptural pieces are about ordinary or everyday scenes which we encounter, at home or in the street, but in which things have been shifted slightly out of context.

• What would you make or do, inspired by this artist's work and where would you make it?

• Choose an ordinary object from home or school and place it in an unfamiliar landscape. Examine its shape and texture in contrast to or perhaps blending in with its surroundings... Move it into different positions and photograph each siting. Watch how different lighting and weather conditions affect it...Try working with multiples (mass produced versions of the same object) as well as single objects.

• Choose a setting somewhere outside the school or in the local environment (you will probably have to ask permission for this) and construct a piece of work which will draw people's attention to the siting of the work. Can your work encourage them to think about their surroundings and the meaning of the objects you have placed there? Observe how people react then move the piece to a different location within the school. See how both the form and meaning change. Do people's reactions also change?

Many of Orozco's pieces exist in a setting, or a number of locations, over time, accumulating meanings as the work develops. For instance 'Piedra que cede' (Yielding Stone), 1992, made from 150lbs of plastercine, is a sort of malleable boulder (the same weight as the artist) which was pushed through the streets of New York, collecting particles, debris and the imprints of the surfaces along which it travelled. When it was then put on display, it collected the fingerprints of curious gallery visitors. It therefore changed over time and depending on its location.

Orozco's work has a momentary feel about it - perhaps this is why his other chosen medium is photography. Works as transitory as 'Breath on Piano' 1993 (which is just what it sounds like) can only exist as a moment in time, and then a photographic record.

There is also a recycled element to his work in the way he makes meanings out of other's refuse. This process in itself is a comment on the materialism of North America, and the resourcefulness of less wealthy countries.