overview
Lesson 1 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 1 | ode to a view
activity | ode to everyday
In his photographs and sculptures, Gabriel Orozco
re-conceives the events and objects of everyday life with new significance
and often beauty. Orozco compares the camera to a shoebox within
which he can collect images and ideas. During his daily walks, the
artist uses his camera to document both the experience of his surroundings
and the poetry often overlooked in found objects. In works such
as “Pinched
Ball” and “Cats
and Watermelons” Orozco captures the simplicity and poetry
of daily life. View the video segment about Orozco and have students
look at slideshows of his work (see links above). Ask students to
describe both the imagery and the tone they see within Orozco's
photographs.
Discuss the following quote by Orozco in relation to his photographs:
“I concentrate on reality in terms of what is happening to
me and I try to revolutionize that and try to rethink it and transform
it. I try to transform reality with its own rules, with the things
I find there. So like the market in Brazil, I found the oranges
there. Or the island in the island: it was a bottle with pieces
of wood that was there, and I rearranged that. I never carry anything
with me.”
How do Orozco's images reflect an appreciation of the landscape
and the transformative power of the artist? Read several of the
odes of Pablo Neruda, including “Ode
to a Chestnut on the Ground” and “Ode
to a Large Tuna in the Market.” Compare and contrast
the photographic images of Orozco with the odes of Neruda. How is
a literary tribute different from or similar to a visual tribute?
Compare and contrast each artists’ choice of subject matter
and the way their work conveys meaning to the reader or viewer.
Orozco has also created a series of sculptures that re-imagine the
rules, the design, or the outcomes of games such as billiards, chess,
and ping pong, such as in the work “Oval
Billiard Table.” Orozco says, “I think every game
is a universe in a way, or every game is an expression of how the
universe works for different cultures. Ping pong is a game about
the universe playing or is a game about how the universe is so arbitrary
and how it’s constant.” Have students identify the different
games that Orozco has altered and how they might reflect different
cultural philosophies and ideas. How might these games be considered
‘conceptual landscapes?’ The author Jorge
Luis Borges also creates fictional landscapes, characters
and scenarios with roots in philosophy, theology, history and imagination.
Have students read the short stories “The
Garden of Forking Paths” and “The
Library of Babel” and discuss how these stories
relate to the landscapes Orozco is capturing in his photographs
and constructing in his games.
Ask students to choose a board game and reinvent it as a new ‘landscape’
that reflects a particular cultural philosophy or history that is
meaningful to them personally. Students should consider what games
like "Life," "Monopoly," "Risk," "Battleship,"
and others say about our cultural or conceptual landscape and how
they might be changed to function as a critique or ode to that landscape.
Using whatever media are necessary, students should create new game
board, cards, playing pieces, die, etc. to reflect their chosen
landscape and related philosophy. |
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