Courtesy Gabriel Rico and Perrotin
Mexican sculptor and installation artist Gabriel Rico has, in recent years, become a standard-bearer for the vibrant and much talked-about contemporary art scene in Guadalajara, Mexico. He emerged in American art galleries in 2017 with shows in New York and Dallas.
But until now, the 38-year-old hasn’t had a solo exhibition in an American museum. The Aspen Art Museum will host the first, opening Saturday, March 9.
Titled “The Discipline of the Cave,” the show promises to include new site-specific work made in response to the architecture of the ground-floor galleries at the museum.
“He is super ambitious,” museum director Heidi Zuckerman hinted in the fall while she was working with Rico on the show’s conception.
Deeply influenced by earth sciences and philosophy, Rico brings a fresh surrealist vision to his installations — creating uncanny natural scenes and settings that mix taxidermy animals and preserved insects alongside neon lights and found objects like soda bottles and ceramic homewares. He often arranges found objects on walls to look like mathematical equations. Rico once spent five years working on one simple-seeming circular sculpture of found tree branches — patiently waiting to find the perfect shapes to make it.
Carefully arranged, his works can be comic and creepy as they explore the relationships between humans and the natural environment (it’s a fitting companion to Nina Katchadourian’s ongoing video bird-watching installation “Twitters and Cheaters” in the museum’s grand staircase).
A trained architect, Rico designs spaces rather than just placing a work on a white wall. Don’t be startled if you stumble across taxidermy birds and animals looking at his sculptures in Aspen — they’re often part of the show.
“For the human brain, it can be tricky to define at first impression if the animal is alive or not,” he said in a 2017 talk at Perrotin New York gallery. “I want to work with that mystical discourse and possibility with my work.”
For his first museum show in America, Rico wanted to do more than showcase work.
“He is very interested in giving back,” Zuckerman said. “He keeps stressing that he wants to make his show available and accessible.”
The museum has, so far, announced three educational and community events using Rico’s work as a jumping-off point: a family workshop on June 8, an entry of the Arte en Español series for Spanish speakers also on June 8 and a talk by former Ute tribe chairman Roland McCook on indigenous animals in Western Colorado. The public is also invited to an opening reception on Friday evening.
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