The U.S. premiere and only West Coast venue of this traveling exhibition of work by Paris-based art and design duo Lucy + Jorge Orta The Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design is proud to announce the upcoming exhibition, Food – Water – Life / Lucy + Jorge Orta, on view from August 16 through December 6, 2014. Ben Maltz Gallery is the only West Coast venue of this U.S. premiere of the Orta's work. The exhibition is organized by Tufts University Art Gallery and curated by Judith Hoos Fox and Ginger Gregg Duggan (c2 | curatorsquared). Lucy and Jorge Orta are on campus October 20-25 for a week-long residency working with Otis students and giving lectures. The residency week culminates with a public conversation between the artists and the curators, followed by a reception, on Saturday, October 25, 3pm-6pm.
The sculptures, drawings, installations and video by this Paris-based wife and husband duo Lucy + Jorge Orta collectively explore major concerns that define the 21st century: biodiversity, environmental conditions, climate change and exchange among peoples. As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Ortas' works are relics of their own function–beguiling assemblages that are the platform for the preparation of food, mechanisms that actually purify water, and elements created for a 2007 expedition to Antarctica that are part of an effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The works in this exhibition are metaphors-in-action, constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.
Working in partnership since 2005, Lucy + Jorge Orta create, produce, and assemble their artworks and large installations together with a team of artists, designers, architects, and craftspeople. They stage on-location workshops, ephemeral interventions, residencies, and master classes, which explore the crucial themes of the contemporary world: the community, autonomy, dwelling, migration, sustainable development, and recycling. Their work has been the focus of important survey exhibitions in major museums, including: the Barbican Art Gallery, London; Modern Art Museum, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; as well as the Venice, Havana, and Johannesburg Biennales.
Exhibition Public Programs:
Lectures by Lucy + Jorge Orta
Tuesday, October 21, 11am-12:15pm, Free | The Forum, Goldsmith Campus, 9045 Lincoln Blvd, L.A. 90045
Thursday, October 23, 10-11:30am, Free | OTIS MFA Studios, 10455 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City 90232
Conversation and Reception
Saturday, October 25, 3-6pm, Free | Ben Maltz Gallery
Curators Judith Hoos Fox and Ginger Gregg Duggan in conversation with Lucy + Jorge Orta, 3-4pm, followed by a reception.
Tour itinerary: September 6 – December 16, 2012, Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA; January 22 – March 3, 2012, Zilkha Gallery, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT; January 25 – May 25, 2014, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; August 16 – December 6, 2014, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA; February 5 – May 7, 2015, Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN
Accompanying Publication: Lucy + Jorge Orta/Food-Water-Life was published in 2011 by Princeton Architectural Press with contributions from Judith Hoos Fox and Ginger Gregg Duggan (c2 | curatorsquared), Hou Hanru, Ellen Luptan, and Zoe Ryan, and is available for purchase for $40 at the Tufts University Art Gallery or directly from www.papress.com; 192 Pages, 300 color illustrations.
The exhibition at Otis Ben Maltz Gallery is sponsored in part by the OTIS Board of Governors.
