[strumming music]
[Dog barking]
[Damian Ortega] I like the objects when they have experience,
history.
My work is a form of appropriation.
Appropriation is a political statement
because it gives me the chance to transform and
recontextualize
everyday objects we take for granted.
It's just, uh, the way of working in Mexico,
the way of found materials in the everyday life.
"Cosmologia Doméstica" is a crazy
or schizophrenic carousel, uh, kind of cosmos,
more like a homemade solar system.
It was my own chairs, my own table.
I planned it, but never with the real context of the
weather,
and then we have a lot of problems after a few days
because the leather strings grows and expanded
with rainy weather...
[Drill whirring]
and we decide to bring the piece again to the studio
to repair and to adjust everything.
— With inertia they begin to...
— Perhaps they are moving, aren't they?
Right?
I think one of the most exciting
moments
during the construction of an art work
is to take some risks.
The most important thing is the, um the failure
because you learn a lot of things.
I always had the idea to be an artist
since being very young.
It's funny because my--my brother likes a lot the
to do experiments and to take apart kitchen appliances
to see how they work,
and I was watching him carefully. Yeah.
We grow up like this always with curiosity
because our parents was permissive with us
and we had the chance toto play.
[sawing]
— It's your turn.
[Damian Ortega] It's very exciting.
It's, uh, really a revelation, what is happening inside.
— Ah, esta.
— OK. Entonces.
— Hah. OK.
Esta.
I name this works "Geodes"
like a geological term of the stones.
In this one, we use, uh, cardboard boxes
and--and newspaper...
and we found this paper they
find in the streets,
especially during the Day of the Dead,
and I think it's really beautiful,
and I decide to include them into the pieces.
You can see the skull,
the eye, the nose, and the mouth.
It's really interesting, the dialogue
with the with the street.
[Door lock clicking]
[Drum and trumpet playing]
[Damian Ortega] I was in high school,
and I had really bad relation with my professors.
I took one day off, and I went to visit
the university to see how it works,
and I get really shocked because I thought it was
boring.
— Hola. ¿Que tal?
— Hola.
I decide I create my own, um,
self-organized, uh, university...
and I found a painter.
His name is Gabriel Orozco, and we meet every Friday
in a very informal, absolutely nonacademic
but self-made school...
like a Renaissance studio with a mentor
who shares his knowledge...
but at the same time, it's a party
where you can find your friends and have a beer and
paint.
We start to move little by little
to understand the painting more as an object,
as a sculpture.
Then we start to use everyday objects,
and you can see this change from representation
to presentation...
because, uh, if you, uh, don't use anymore,
um, oil painting and you start to--to use tortillas,
the town, the guy who works in the factory,
the culture is involved in the piece.
People said, "What are you doing?
"You are very good to paint."
"You are very good to draw, and what is this [beep]"
"What you are doing?" [laughs]
— Can we try it where it gets some light
to see if it casts a shadow.
— Si.
— Maybe if we see it from this side it will look better
like a shadow there.
All my friends from the workshops,
we are doing this show, first time all together.
— Towards the outside, no? To lighten.
— Right. Poquito mas. OK.
[Damian Ortega] I love when a new work, a new piece
needs to create their own tools.
The piece which I'm doing is a big cube
made with Styrofoam, and I am carving
a big hole inside to create your own living space.
[Scraping]
The ideas comes from different places.
Sometimes reading, sometimes materials
give some ideas.
Well, I found a beautiful book years ago,
"Architecture Without Architects,"
and, uh, I saw beautiful pictures of, um,
troglodyte, uh, house--houses which are a cave.
They start to carve from inside,
which is a completely different approach than
architecture,
and you start to understand the space from inside.
I think it's interesting just to follow my own curiosity.
It's important, this dialogue between ¿como se dice? uh,
intuition and rationality
to--to produce, uh, the click or the twist.
[Speaking Spanish]
I love tools.
The tool is a kind of hand, an extension of your hand,
and you can touch, and you can transform.
You can modify,
and then the tools are this extension
of your own knowledge.
In Mexico, we say…
The tool makes the teacher.
[synth music]
I went to Berlin, and one of my pleasures
was to visit the flea market every Sunday,
and I found beautiful tools and amazing tools,
different than the ones we use in Mexico.
I start to collect them, and when I had many,
I start to play with idea to to put all around me,
to hold all of them.
♪ ♪
The idea, for me, was to permit the audience
to come inside of the piece and feel
how many possibilities
and how we see everything through tools,
through instruments to transform everything.
[Speaking Spanish]
I found a book
to--to repair your own car,
and it was some beautiful, exploded views
or the car and the engine, the transmission.
I decide to use the Beetle because it was my own car.
It was part of my own family.
Second is because it was the most popular car in Mexico City,
and then, uh, I start to do
these kind of exploded installations.
You can find a universe in every single object.
It's amazing how objects have this life and this energy.
I don't know exactly how comes the idea to do a trilogy.
The second piece is "Moby Dick."
I have my white Beetle car,
and I thought it's a kind of whale,
and you need to control it, and you need
to move it and to push it.
It's a kind of obsession, no, how Captain Ahab
becomes completely engaged with the power of that whale,
and he tried to control,
and my performance was a caricature
of this domestic mythology.
[distant drum music]
The third piece is I had the idea to create
this mythology of this character who was a car as a hero.
To have a mythological tour, going back to the same place
where the car was born in Puebla
in the factory of Volkswagen
and going exactly to the same place to die...
and it was a sad moment,
like everyone was like in a funeral,
but it was a beautiful experience.
[Barrel organ playing]
[Dog barking]
[Speaks Spanish]
OK.
Bueno.
— One by one, make sure there are no mistakes.
Bien.
Es perfecto.
Actually I get very obsessed with order.
I try to classify the pieces and the objects
to make comprehensible.
Of course, it's nicer than the dark side,
no, what you saw.
Order is boring, and disorder is exciting...
but I like this dialogue between both.
I think it's also part of the language of my works.
If you ask me to--to put in the balance
what is more important, the object or the idea,
I think the important is the combustion,
the sparks between both when they create a new experience
because, uh, maybe the object itself is not important,
but if you put in a different context,
there's, um, the chance to understand life
in a different way.
[soft electronic music]