Gabriel Orozco Takes on White Cube Seoul

Spanning close to four decades, Gabriel Orozco‘s practice is lionised both at home in Mexico, and abroad.

Exhibited extensively across the globe—including at kurimanzutto in Mexico City, Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, and Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris—White Cube can now be credited with expanding the artist’s outreach to London, Hong Kong, and now Seoul.

For his exhibition at White Cube, on view during Frieze Seoul, Orozco presents recent paintings and works on paper developed from ‘Diario De Plantos’, a collection of notebook studies chronicling his impressions of plant life gathered from around his studios in Tokyo, Mexico City, and Acapulco.

Lockdown in the Japanese capital kickstarted the series, where Orozco would document the textures and shapes of leaves that fell at his feet. He would then return to his studio, applying gouache, tempera, ink, and graphite onto each leaf and transferring them into fibrous papers, distilling the graceful yet unpredictable essence of nature itself.

In Seoul, Orozco’s exhibition moves further into the natural world, gesturing more explicitly towards animal life as a primary subject and making the everyday visible through the boundaries of art.

In February 2025, Orozco will present a solo exhibition at Museo Jumex in Mexico City, spanning 30 years of practice.

Main image: Gabriel Orozco, Lion Fish (2024). Tempera and gold leaf on linen. 50 x 50 cm. Courtesy White Cube.