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15 rue Veydt - 1060 brussels – belgium – t +32 (0)2 533 03 90 [email protected] – www.galerievaleriebach.com
PRESS RELEASE / lucy+jorge Orta Exhibition March 17th – April 29th 2017 Opening in the presence of the artists Thursday 16th March from 5pm to 8pm
© Lucy + Jorge Orta - " Totipotent Architecture - Les Moulins Electricity Turbine Hall II", 2009-2013 Steel, hand blown glass, 50 x 40 x 45cm
For their second solo-show at the Galerie Valérie Bach, artists Lucy + Jorge Orta present two series of works, brought together for the first time, uniting three-dimensional works with paintings in order to shed light on their creative process. The first section of the exhibition is based on the cell: the cell of life, the residential cell, the prison cell, etc. Forms and volumes made of hand-blown glass represent various aspects of our biological universe. The very notion of the cell is polysemic and ambivalent: both container and content, structured and structural, partial and whole, form and volume, open and closed, unique and multiple, stabile and mobile ... These eye-catching curious, graphic and chromatic assemblages are brought to life with the help of the artists’ vision.
15 rue Veydt - 1060 brussels – belgium – t +32 (0)2 533 03 90 [email protected] – www.galerievaleriebach.com
In the series entitled « Totipotent Architecture», Lucy + Jorge Orta refer to the monumental architectonical structure, the evident formula, the key element in the development of cells. This force, this « full potential » (« Totipotency ») of a cell is an ever-growing powerful virtual energy, that can only come to its end under certain conditions. A habitable and conquering living cell creates new forms, regenerates whole new individuals, as though driven by an incommensurable and irresistible need to exist and to conquer, in search of a new beginning, a new expression, a new self, a new world. Parallels can be drawn between the steel and glass works created by Lucy + Jorge Orta and the « Capriccio », the Renaissance architectural dreams, or the Great Architect’s dream of the Universe and the Cosmos, a dream that is the very essence of creation and life. No life without dream… To find its incarnation, biological life also stems from a divine dream. Between being and living, housing and living, seeing and looking, « Totipotent Architecture» is part of this infra-thin space, that infinite portion of void separating seemingly synonymous concepts but rich in meaning, thickening the consistency by revealing its contrast (similar to medical contrast imaging). In the work entitled « Cells diptych », the artists surpass the cellular infinity by creating enlarged biological cells in Murano blown-glass. In doing so, they reveal a new macroscopic life, objectified as a scientific experimental observation in a laboratory. These cells have thus become the manifest metaphors of nature and art’s creative energy and necessity to replicate… the very image of life. With this moving work, the artists pay tribute to life and its vital and primordial power. By synthesizing it in a quasi-metaphysical and medical universe, they create the possibility of a new cosmogony, permanently reinventing the infinitely large and the infinitely small. In doing so, they give their works the ability to self-renew, to pursue their mitosis, endlessly, free from the control of the two artists.
This series on cells, source of hope and dynamism, portends the second part the exhibition, based on Jorge's pictorial work in 1970s, when painting was his way of escaping the overwhelming Argentine dictatorship, and in which the exhibited works explore the idea of the accident as both a violent moment but also as a random, uncontrolled phenomenon. In the series « Derrame » - Spanish for overflow, leak, spill, or attack (of the brain) - Lucy + Jorge Orta infused these meanings into intense, colourful, flat haemorrhages. These accidents become both the essential composition and the subject matter of the painting. In these formal and chromatic chaos, the artists offer a second possible interpretation, similar to the first part of the exhibition dedicated to cells: vital overflow, a force allowing an irrepressible continuum creating new cell situations, new possibilities. These artworks are based on the uncontrolled, similar to the action of cellular duplication. Driven by their own necessity - frustrating for the artists who lose control – they are followed by the artists’ latest creations grouped under the name « Assemblages ». The series comprises three-dimensional works, whose chaotic arrays and juxtapositions of colour and collages of “formal reality” on the pictorial surface: stretcher bars, life-buoys, window frames resemble an accident. This exhibition is therefore a synthesis of the couple’s creative energy and their relation to the world through their scholarly search, exploring doubt and balance against a background of vital and infinite breath. Constantin Chariot
15 rue Veydt - 1060 brussels – belgium – t +32 (0)2 533 03 90 [email protected] – www.galerievaleriebach.com
Biography of the artists
Lucy and Jorge Orta co-founded Studio Orta in 1992. They now work under the co-authorship Lucy + Jorge
Orta.
The artists’ collaborative practice focuses on social and ecological issues, employing a diversity of media –
sculpture, installation, couture, painting, silkscreen, photography, video, drawing, light and performance – to
realize major bodies of work. Orta’s artwork has been the focus of important survey exhibitions, including: The
Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London (2005); Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice Biennale (2005);
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006); Biennial of the End of the World, Ushuaia, Antarctic
Peninsula (2007); Hangar Bicocca spazio d’arte, Milan (2008); Natural History Museum, London (2010);
MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome and Shanghai Biennale (2012); Yorkshire Sculpture Park
(2013); Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca and Parc de la Villette, Paris (2014); London Museum
Ontario (2015); Peterborough City Museum (2016).
In recognition of their contribution to sustainability, the artists received the Green Leaf Award (2007) for artistic
excellence with an environmental message, presented by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Lucy Orta was born in 1966 in the UK. After studying fashion-knitwear design she debuted her artistic career
with Jorge in Paris in 1991. In 2002, she co-founded the pioneer Master programme Man & Humanity,
promoting social and sustainable design at the Design Academy of Eindhoven. She is currently professor and
Chair of Art and the Environment at the London University of the Arts.
Jorge Orta was born in 1953 in Argentina and studied simultaneously at the Fine-Arts (1972-1979) and
Architecture (1973- 1980) Faculties of the Universidad Nacional of Rosario. He moved to France in 1984
receiving a scholarship from the Ministry of Foreign and European affairs to pursue a D.E.A. (Diplôme d'études
approfondies) at the Sorbonne in Paris.
In 1999, Lucy + Jorge Orta established their studios in Seine-et-Marne and founded their research complex, Les
Moulins in 2011.
For all information please contact: Karim Tall at +32 (0)2 533 03 91
15 rue Veydt - 1060 brussels – belgium – t +32 (0)2 533 03 90 [email protected] – www.galerievaleriebach.com
Contact:
Galerie Valérie Bach - www.galerievaleriebach.com
15 rue Veydt - 1060 Brussels - +32 2 533 03 90 / [email protected]
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday, from 11am to 6pm.
© Lucy + Jorge Orta - « Untitled (diptych)», 2016 Assemblage painting on wood, ladder, life ring, aluminium bars, window frames, resin - 230 x 520 cm
