Gabriel Orozco - Mobile matrix - Art21 - Exclusive

Normally, I don't do public work, I don't do commissions. You know, the library is the National Library So it was like a major project. So they approached me, but I told them, "If I have an idea I like, I will do it." So when the building was ready, I had a couple of ideas, And one of these ideas was to have this skeleton of a whale in the center. Somehow, it was like an image, more than an idea. But it came to me like a very clear image Of this floating whale in the center of the bookshelves in the library. When I am dealing with a ready-made object Or something from reality, I try to understand the logic of the object, How it works. So I took some joints in the different centers of movement of the whale, And from those points, I start to draw circles. They're like rings, And those rings intersect, So you have different points in the body. So, from the different centers of the skeleton, I was drawing rings expanding, And they were touching in different ways, Surprising ways, Until it was really huge rings. At the end was a lot labor to fill it with graphite. And I like the graphite because its lead Has certain qualities that is not like painting on the bone, It's more like dust. I always liked the idea of this dark mineral Against the whiteness of the bone, How they contrast. If you think, in my work, as a way of taking from reality And then extracting something, and then revealing just one central part, Or the part that I'm interested in. It's a kind of collage. Getting involved with that, and remaking the structure again. So it still is what it is originally, But then is revealed in a different way. I mean, I know that when you do something like this In a big building like that one, The symbolism and the mythology starts to play a factor, And humanity has a lot of legendary tales and stories And mythologies in relation with the whale. On the other hand, normally in a building like this, You will do an eagle or something symbolic about Mexico or something like that, That they love to do in the old times, you know? But I think now, being more about knowledge, and also the building has an ecological side. But I think that all that is in the work Without me saying anything. I think for me, what is important is the translation From real experience. But then how you translate that experience into a sign, into a language, into art, That you can communicate your discoveries to other people.