Installation view of the exhibition “Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional.” Museo Jumex, 2025.
Photo: Gerardo Landa & Eduardo López (GLR Estudio).
For over 40 years, Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco has defied what it means to create art. These reflections have not only shaped his creations, but also how they are brought to life, and in turn, how they engage with the world around them, blurring the lines between art and object. A new exhibition at Mexico City’s Museo Jumex offers Orozco a playground to showcase the myriad of disciplines and strategies he has explored throughout four decades of work.
The exhibit, titled Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional, marks the artist’s first museum exhibition in Mexico since 2006—his most recent shows in the country had taken place in galleries. While it is being regarded as the biggest retrospective of Orozco’s work, he doesn’t see it as such. Instead, he defines it as a compilation, a “layered landscape” where smaller pieces, such as drawings and photographs—lesser-known mediums of Orozco’s work—mingle with large-scale works. The title is a nod to the many techniques, interests, and travels he has had throughout his life.
The museum-wide exhibition features 300 objects. Rather than being ordered chronologically, the pieces are displayed based on the artist’s themes and musings—particularly, the artist’s concept of “constellations,” where clusters of material objects, as well as their relationships within and beyond their grouping, hold meanings of their own. Rather than presenting heaps of new pieces, the exhibit allows both artist and audience to look at these works with a fresh perspective, “where it’s all mixed up and I look at it as if it’s all new,” the artist told Mexican newspaper La Razón. “This exhibition has the potential to see how my work has been transformed and a way of re-understanding the contemporary past.”
Among the highlights of Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional are the installation Dark Wave, a life-size replica of a blue whale skeleton, covered in an intricate geometrical pattern; and the second version of Mátrix Móvil, which crown’s Mexico City’s Biblioteca Vasconcelos; La DS (Cornaline), a Citroën DS model car shrunk and cut in half; and a new edition of Ping Pond Table, made up of two ping pong tables sliced and arranged around an artificial pond.
The exhibit is divided among four floors, each with a unique theme, as well and the museum’s public plaza. From the top down, these include: air and floating themes; the land and what grows in it, such as plants; underwater (where Dark Wave can be found); and the Composta, where informative panels regarding Orozco’s work can be browsed.
“Thinking about Orozco’s multiple ‘technics’ isn’t just a matter of thinking about whether he uses traditional artistic techniques like carving or casting, glazing or impasto,” says exhibition curator Briony Fer. “Rather, it’s to ask how he uses tools of rotation and symmetry, amongst other modus operandi—that is, other ways of working—in order to create new relations and correspondences between things. In the process, he unsettles what we think we know about the world.”
Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional is currently on view through August 3, 2025 at Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Admission is free. To learn more, visit Museo Jumex’s website.
A new exhibition at Mexico City’s Museo Jumex showcases the many techniques Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco has explored throughout four decades of work.
Gabriel Orozco
La DS (Cornaline), 2013
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris/Los Angeles
The exhibit Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional marks the first artist’s first museum exhibition in Mexico since 2006.
Gabriel Orozco
Untitled (Airline Ticket), 2001
La Colección Jumex, Mexico Photo: John Berens
While it is being regarded as the biggest retrospective of Orozco’s work, he doesn’t see it as such. Instead, he defines it as a compilation.
Installation view of the exhibition “Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional.” Museo Jumex, 2025.
Photo: Gerardo Landa & Eduardo López (GLR Estudio).
In this “layered landscape” where smaller pieces, such as drawings and photographs—lesser-known mediums of Orozco’s work—mingle with large-scale works.
Gabriel Orozco
Four Bicycles (There is Always One Direction),1994
Photo: Tom Powel
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris/Los Angeles
The title is a nod to the many techniques, interests, and travels he has taken on throughout his life.
Installation view of the exhibition “Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional.” Museo Jumex, 2025.
Photo: Gerardo Landa & Eduardo López (GLR Estudio).
Rather than being ordered chronologically, the pieces are displayed based on the artist’s themes and musings.
Gabriel Orozco
Balones acelerados, 2005 Colección Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, DiGAV, UNAM
This draws from Orozco’s concept of “constellations,” where clusters of material objects, as well as their relationships within and beyond their grouping, hold meanings of their own.
Installation view of the exhibition “Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional.” Museo Jumex, 2025.
Photo: Gerardo Landa & Eduardo López (GLR Estudio).
Rather than presenting a heap of new pieces, the exhibit allows both artist and audience to look at these works with a fresh perspective.
Gabriel Orozco
Árbol nuevo, 2006
Colección Isabel y Agustín Coppel
The exhibit is divided among four floors—each with a unique theme—, as well and the museum’s public plaza.
Installation view of the exhibition “Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional.” Museo Jumex, 2025.
Photo: Gerardo Landa & Eduardo López (GLR Estudio).
“This exhibition has the potential to see how my work has been transformed and a way of re-understanding the contemporary past,” Orozco said.
Gabriel Orozco
“El jardín del mundo,” 1998
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris/Los Angeles
The museum-wide survey features 300 objects.
Installation view of the exhibition “Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional.” Museo Jumex, 2025.
Photo: Gerardo Landa & Eduardo López (GLR Estudio).
Gabriel Orozco: Politécnico Nacional is on view through August 3, 2025 at Museo Jumex in Mexico City.
Gabriel Orozco
Working Table, (Tokyo), 2015-2023
Jenny Yeh, Winsing Arts Foundation
Installation at Jenny Yeh, Winsing Art Place in Taipei in 2024