Studio Orta

After the resounding success of the exhibition Food Water Life at the Parc de la Villette in Paris during summer 2014, the Richard E.Peeler Art Center at DePauw University inaugurates Lucy + Jorge Orta’s US touring exhibition Food Water Life on February 5th 2015. The exhibition presents three bodies of work that span close to two decades of collaborative work. Through sculptures, drawings, installations, and video the artists explore major concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability, climate change, and social economy.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Ortas’ works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Processing Units and the Purification Factory are, respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and a mechanism to purify water. Other sculpture created for a 2007 expedition to Antarctica, form part of a global effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, imaginative constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

Food Water Life was initiated by the Tufts University Art Gallery in September 2012, and is curated by curatorsquared.
The final leg of the tour will conclude at London Museum in Ontario, Canada from August 29 – December 6, 2015.