Gabriel Kuri

Interview with Kadist Art Foundation

About the Artist

Born 1970 in Mexico City

Gabriel Kuri creates visually refined sculptures, collages, installations, and photographs, working from repurposed natural, industrial, and mass-produced objects (insulation foam, shells, soda cans, and stones, to name only a few). In Kuri’s work, which is often responsive to its exhibition site, questions of form and the nature of sculpture are of equal importance to more social, political, and economic concerns regarding the circulation of commodities (artworks included) and information within a global market.

For .)(., he arranged an upended industrial waste container to mirror a curved metal plate. The forms lean toward each other but never touch. Two large stones abut the objects on either side, which, despite material distinctions, results in a curious symmetry, reflecting the shape of its title. By placing industrial and commercial objects in a gallery space, Kuri removes them from their intended function, forcing the audience to consider what they would normally do. Kuri’s forms arrest the viewer with their familiarity while calling attention to the fact that all objects that surround us are coded and marked before we encounter them.