Lucy and Jorge Orta, discuss their work and it relation to the contemporary Middle Eastern art market

Lucy and Jorge Orta As told to Reem Fekri

Lucy and Jorge Orta will be showing work at Art Dubai this year and are represented by Galeria Continua, Stand A28

Jorge Orta:

1985-1986 La Sorbonne Paris, Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies, DEA Arts Plastiques
1973-1980 Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Degree Fine Art, Faculty of Fine Art; 1973-1980 Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Degree in Architecture, Faculty of Architecture

Lucy Orta:

2008 London College of Fashion (University of the Arts London), Professor of Art, Fashion and the Environment
2007 Nottingham Trent University, Honorary Degree Master of Fine Art, School of Art and Design
2002-2007 London College of Fashion (University of the Arts London), Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Fashion, Professor
1995-1999 Nottingham Trent Polytechnic, Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Fashion Knitwear Design

“We’ve been deeply involved with art and design education for a number of years. Jorge in Argentina and me in Europe, firstly at the ENSAD (Ecole National des Arts Decoratifs Paris) in 1999, then I co-found the ‘Man + Humanity’ Master in Industrial Design for the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2002, and now I’m a professor at the University of the Arts London. We are witnessing a huge increase in the number of graduate and post-graduate programs, offering a huge variety of subject areas and an enormous potential for exploration and self-development. There is a tendency towards a longer more formal academic education with an emphasis on research as the traditional art school structure is transforming into a university system with excellent research departments, faculty and environments. This is a good thing as the more complex the world we are entering, the more time we need to develop a depth of analysis within our practices.

We work with different approaches for example. The first is close to the way Jorge worked in Argentina, not as individual artists, but operating as team facilitators of a process that enable the emotions, feelings or directions of a group project to emerge. The object of investigation in this kind of practice is the communal sentiment. Together with our collaborators, we try to formulate a discussion around current issues by sketching and drawing around a subject such as water. We jot down ideas, conduct visual and textual research about the subject and begin to refine the issue until a common idea surges from the mass, which may or may not result in an object, installation or sculpture.

The second approach – which is undertaken with or without community collaborators – is to try to represent what is not being discussed in current affairs. For example in the early 1990’s the subjects of immigration, ‘sans-papiers’ (without identity papers) and refugees were not mainstream news so we felt we needed to intervene and this led to the Refuge Wear series. Later we focused on the problem of food distribution and consumption, waste and recycling in the projects All in One Basket and Hortirecycling. This research has been ongoing since 1996 and now food has become an important part of the public agenda. During 1996 to 2006 The Gift focused on organ donation. A friend who died waiting for a heart transplant made us aware of the fact that there are thousands of deaths per year in France due to lack of organ donations – in a country that can afford solutions. We instigated workshops and actions in over 40 cities that led to a series of important artworks, that really awakened a greater awareness of the issue and since became adopted as a public agenda item.

The third approach is to generate a broader social process by ‘contamination’, i.e. bringing together a wide diversity of partners from very different fields of interest to become involved in the subject. We take on a role of co-ordinators of a larger enterprise by setting up whole series of ideas that create a long lasting ripple effect and often the artworks we produce as a result resonate very successfully with all kinds of publics.

Identity has been the subject of my research for over fifteen years. The bodies of works Refuge Wear, Identity + Refuge, Body Architecture, Nexus Architecture have all explored the individual and his or her relationships with the collective structures of society these have resulted in performances, interventions and whole series of objects. Antarctica, our most recent work delves into the subject of the environment, the diminishing ozone layer, melting icecaps, etc.

Cultural institutions, public museums, collectors, and the general public have hugely appreciated the body of work OrtaWater. In 2007 we won the Green Leaf Award for Sculpture for artistic excellence with an environmental message, presented by the United Nations Environment Program in partnership with the Natural World Museum, at the Nobel Peace Center Oslo, Norway.

I can imagine that the context of for creating contemporary art East is not dissimilar to the struggles artists like Jorge were engaged with throughout Latin America in the 1970’s: disillusion with the political system, lack of support and infrastructure for creating or presenting art, repression of subject matter, censorship, few consumers, poor education, etc. etc. It’s hardly surprising that the work is political, but it’s certainly not true to say that artists in the West are less political. We, and many Western Europeans are certainly most concerned about these issues and deeply engaged.

Now that the infrastructures like Art Dubai, auction houses, galleries are gaining ground artists have a chance to become better represented and audiences have an easier access for meeting artists and their viewing their work. We have a lot to discover about the Eastern culture and this is a very positive thing, it can only enrich and deepen our knowledge.”

Photo Credits:

Lucy + Jorge Orta, Fallujah - Clinic variation,2007, acciaio, 106 h x 20 w x 51cm,
weight 10 kg,
Photo Thierry Bal

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