Damián Ortega was born in Mexico City in 1967. Being taught and influenced by Gabriel Orozco, Ortega began his career as a political cartoonist when he was 16. These times were dark in Mexico City affecting his political cartoons and how he began to view the government and the world itself. He now makes sculptures that are still influenced by the wit and critique of his past works.

His pieces are constructed of everyday objects that visit political and social implications. He finds meaning in his art through relationships that occur between multiple things or objects. By combining these objects found in the daily routine of our lives, he lightens the political and economic issues that underly our material culture. Many pieces are often suspended becoming humorous diagrams of faces, words and buildings. These visual shifts are also viewed as cultural shifts which again brings out social history and political matters.

One of his pieces is constructed from tortillas, inviting those who see the piece to consider the possibility of using local items and knowledge tp create these types of pieces. It was geared towards allowing he viewer to consider geopolitical issues and to reach beyond the initial and former ways of abstraction.

This piece is a disassembled, suspended 1989 Volkswagen Beetle. The beetle is an important symbol to the everyday Mexican because it was the city’s official taxi. Using his idea of disassembling and splitting thang the parts by wire. To Ortega, the car parts are pieces with a perfect specific function. The car parts being analogous to the routine and systems of Mexico.

These tools were suspended to create an experience about what tools really are and what they mean. They can construct as well as destroy. They come between the user and the object they are either destroying or building. The piece touches on the duality of the universe. The outside of the sculpture is very uninviting and intimidating; the center gives another tone for the viewer. It allows for a point of view that sees the resistance between us and the object we are changing. We can’t control the world, but wit tools we can mold it.

One of his most recent known pieces is “Cosmogonía doméstica“. In this piece he built a domestic scene. It contains the contents of a commonplace kitchen: plates, bowls, teapots, utensils that are spun above a wooden table. Everything rotated slowly, half floating, around five concentric circles built into the floor. The piece was to be a a play on everyday life. Subtlety in routine alongside poverty, capital and bureaucracy. Like a majority of his works there is a cartoon vibe in this sculpture.

Works Cited

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/visit-damian-ortega

https://art21.org/artist/damian-ortega/

https://gladstonegallery.com/artist/damian-ortega/work#&panel1-15

https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/35460745/

Monica Valentine was born in San Mateo, California in 1955 as the fourth of eight children. She is a sculptor who works exclusively with colorful pins, sequins, beads, and shaped foam. The foam shapes range from simple cubes to skulls and everything in between. Her work is said to “build on her passion for jewelry and express her dry, offbeat sense of humor”.

Despite her use of vivid colors, Valentine is actually completely blind, and her eyes are actually prosthetic. Her blindness was due to being born prematurely and possible mistakes made by the doctors treating her. Valentine claims she can “feel” the different colors by their temperature and says, “Blue is cold. Yellow is warm. Green is cool”.  She has always loved color and expresses that with her work and her style. Valentine is usually seen wearing monochromatic outfits and unique jewelry.

Her technique is to select a sharp tack then stick it through a sequin and a bead. She then presses the tack into the foam base, either grouping similar colors or creating contrast with them. Valentine repeats this over and over until the whole foam base is covered. Creative Growth’s gallery guide describes her work as “crown jewels of a lost disco civilization”. All her works remain untitled and therefore left open to viewer interpretation.

Valentine makes a living off her artwork selling it even at major stores like Nordstrom and Artsy with prices in the high hundreds.

Valentine has been part of an organization called Creative Growth since 2012. Creative Growth is described as “a nonprofit based in Oakland, California that serves artists with developmental, intellectual, and physical disabilities by providing a professional studio environment for artistic development, gallery exhibition, and representation”.

Monica Valentine’s work explores texture, shape, and color. The use of tacks sticking up off the surface creates a sense of textures. Her choice of different shaped foams makes for a more interesting surface to build on. Instead of using bland tacks, sequins, or beads, she uses vibrant arrays of colored ones.

Sources:

Art21

The New York Times

Creative Growth

Campus Movie Fest

Thilo Frank was born in Germany and works out of Berlin. He mainly creates sculpture and installation works. He uses many 3d shapes and then incorporates other senses into the understanding of the pieces. There is also a clear inspiration from modern architecture. The theory behind much of his work is to get the viewer to pay attention to the consequences that their actions have. There is a sound element to many of his works that involves recording the viewers and putting the recording on a loop, so that the viewers become part of the installation piece.

For example, Levitation records the movements of the viewers and then plays them out from speakers that are located inside the sculpture. The sounds are played on an eight minute loop, so that they overlap and create a layered echo effect.

He also focuses on the effect that his environment can have on his artwork, in this work he made sure to think about the different effect and the shadows that the triangles would cast throughout the day. For example, You and I, Wandering on the Snake’s Tail looks drastically different between the day and night (he even adds a light to further emphasize that difference.)

Infinite Rock is an installation work located in the United Arab Emirates. From the outside it looks like a giant geometric rock, but if you look close enough you can find an entrance. When you go inside, there are lots on mirrors that reflect you and there is a swing that you can swing on. It also emphasizes how a person lives within a space, although in a less natural way than many of his other works. This piece seems very futuristic when you go inside and takes the viewer out of their comfort zone to experience. He built a similar work to this one that is in Denmark.

Vertical Skip is an installation work that also incorporates the viewers relation to the object, this time physically rather than through sound. The 10 meter tall installation shifts according to the viewers movements causing it to be ever changing. “Lightwire with transformer, speed control unit, sensors, electric engine”. The size of the installation is meant to be overpowering to the viewer, encompassing the entire rooms and waving and shift as people come and go.

Few Phoenix Get Lost in the Water is an installation work in which Thilo Frank built a swing set to be in the water. It is high enough so that the person does not get very wet, but looks as though their feet probably graze the water as they go by. As part of the installation, there is also a shuttle service that drops the viewers off, so that means that their is most likely a period of time when the viewer is completely alone with the work, allowing them to experience something serene and connect with the world around them.