In the sculptures that make up this series, the artist tries to illustrate the fragmentation and recomposition of the contemporary human, through the extroversion of elements related to everyday life. The artist proposes a mental game in which the human projects his desires, interests and ideals on the cactus and a new entity could be formed that is neither plant nor animal, but rather exists in a collective imaginary, subject to the meanings that the objects embedded in the cactus have today.
 

Gabriel Rico 
Born in 1980 in Lagos de Moreno (Jalisco), Gabriel Rico now lives and works in Guadalajara.

Describing himself as an “ontologist with a heuristic methodology,” Rico interrelates found objects and materials, reworking them to create sculptures that invite the viewer to reflect on the relation between human beings and their natural environment. He sometimes uses neon, ceramics, taxidermy mounts, branches of trees, and even more personal objects from his own past to create an equation or formulation, achieving a precise geometry in spite of the unwieldy organic nature of his materials. His installations combine natural and anti-natural forms, handled poetically and ironically, with an insistence on the necessary contemplation of their asymmetry, as well as of our own cultural and political defects. 

He has recently exhibited his work at museums and galleries around the world, including the Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art in Nanjing, China, and Black Cube in Denver in 2022; the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Diego, Perrotin in New York, and the Galería OMR in Mexico City in 2021; Perrotin in Paris in 2020. His work was included in the 58th Venice Biennale and is part of the Korean Ceramic Foundation (KOCEF), among others.
 

Curator: Qiu Zhijie

Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin