Damian Ortega

Born in 1967 in Mexico City, Damian Ortega lives and works between Mexico City and Berlin. He dropped out of school and began a career as a political cartoonist in Mexico City before turning to sculpture, installation, video and performance. From 1987 to 1992, he joined Gabriel Orozco's Taller de los Viernes workshop. In 2005, he received the Hugo Boss Award.

Damian Ortega takes everyday objects and transforms them, changing their primary function, which led him to study fragmentation. His work Cosmic Things, a Volkswagen Beetle that he dismantled and suspended in the air, presented at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, is the very example of this tendency. It is this work that marked the beginning of his career and consecrated him as a leading contemporary artist. He plays on the opposition between the cosmic and the molecular scale, applying in his practice the concepts of physics to human interactions where chaos, accidents and instability produce mutations. The artist reveals the interdependence of various components, whether they be a machine or a social system. 

He also uses recycled materials as illustrated by his work "Controller of the universe" a work built of dozens of hanging sharp tools. They seem to reject each other, as if they were separated by an unknown force. His work has a mystical side that goes beyond what is human. In addition, Ortega is working on optical illusion, particularly in his installation "Champ de vision", which was exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in 2008. This installation was composed of translucent colored circles suspended from the ceiling. The perspective changed according to the viewer's point of view, which is at the origin of the illusion.The artist's first source of inspiration is the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

He usually creates his projects on paper and then they take the form of an installation, a sculpture, a film, a performance... he uses a variety of media. For Ortega, the work of art is always an action, an event.

His work has been on show in numerous renowned institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern in London, Belo Horizonte in Brazil or the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.