SEOUL.- White Cube Seoul is presenting a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco (b.1962).

Living and working in Tokyo, Mexico City and Paris, Orozco’s diverse conceptual practice draws from his surroundings, spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, architecture and design.

Currently the artistic director of the regeneration project of Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park as well as designer of the garden at South London Gallery, UK, which was unveiled in 2016, Orozco’s works explore the precarities of nature. Since the early 1990s, his practice has involved referencing local, easily available materials and observing geometries within our natural world.

Orozco’s new body of work is developed from his Diarios des Plantas; a series of over 700 works on paper comprising leaf prints and washes of gouache and graphite created between 2021 and 2022. Originally contained in 33 notebooks, Diarios des Plantas forms a visual encyclopaedia of the local flora and fauna that the artist encountered in Acapulco, Mexico, and Tokyo, Japan.

In these new paintings on canvas and Shikishi paper, Orozco has adopted and combined techniques from Japanese and Chinese painting traditions with circles. A recurring motif in his practice, in these new works the symbol becomes less overt, fading into the background.

‘Gabriel Orozco’ opens on 4 September and continues until 14 December 2024.

This exhibition marks one year since the inauguration of White Cube Seoul in the bustling Gangnam-gu district. Since opening, the gallery has presented exhibitions by Marguerite Humeau, Minoru Nomata and Lygia Pape, as well as the opening group show ‘The Embodied Spirit’. Forthcoming exhibitions at the gallery include Tunji Adeniyi-Jones and Mona Hatoum in early 2025.

Gabriel Orozco was born in 1962 in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico and lives and works in Tokyo, Mexico City and New York. Orozco is a recipient of the Cultural Achievement Award (2014); The Americas Society (2014) and is also Officer of the Order of Arts and letters (2012). He is currently the artistic director of the ongoing Chapultepec Park regeneration project in Mexico City and in 2016 designed the South London Gallery Garden. He has exhibited extensively including solo exhibitions at The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City (2019); Hessel Museum of Art, New York (2017); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2015); Moderna Museet Stockholm (2014); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2013); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2013); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2012); Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2012); Tate Modern, London (2011); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2010); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009); Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (2006); Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2006); Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2005); The Serpentine Gallery, London (2004); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2004); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2001); and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (1999). Selected group exhibitions include MCA Chicago (2020); MAXXI, Rome (2018); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2018); Seattle Art Museum (2017); Centre Pompidou– Metz (2017); Yokohama Museum of Art (2016); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2015); 11th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2013); 11th Havana Biennial (2012); Art Institute of Chicago (2010); The Powerplant, Toronto (2009); Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2009); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2008); Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2007); 51st Venice Biennale (2005); 50th Venice Biennale (2003); Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002); and Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1999). In 2025, Museo Jumex in Mexico will stage a solo exhibition of Orozco’s work curated by British art historian, critic, and curator Briony Fer.