Black Kites

Currently not on view

Black Kites

1997

Gabriel Orozco (Mexican, born 1962)

During a long convalescence, Gabriel Orozco covered a human skull with a graphite checkerboard that bends and swells over its bony contours. The skull can readily be understood as a memento mori, or reminder of death—a symbol common in the European still-life tradition as well as in the visual traditions of Orozco’s native Mexico. Yet Orozco’s sinewy network of lines brings the skull to life again, suggesting the thoughts that once filled this shell, or the sensate skin that covered it. Working at the interface between two-dimensional drawing and a three-dimensional object, Orozco draws attention to relationships between a surface and an interior world.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Black Kites

Date:

1997

Artist:

Gabriel Orozco (Mexican, born 1962)

Medium:

Graphite on skull

Dimensions:

8 1/2 × 5 × 6 1/4 inches (21.6 × 12.7 × 15.9 cm)

Classification:

Sculpture

Credit Line:

Gift (by exchange) of Mr. and Mrs. James P. Magill, 1997

Accession Number:

1997-171-1a,b

Geography:

Made in New York, New York, United States, North and Central America

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Currently not on view