Project O+O is a collaboration between artist Gabriel Orozco and designer Shinichiro Ogata. Co-presented with kurimanzutto gallery, the project transforms HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo into a temporary extension of Orozco's home: a living exhibition where artworks, specially designed objects, architecture, and culinary experiences come together in an environment of artistic exploration.
Featuring new works by Gabriel Orozco, the exhibition explores the relationship between art, gastronomy, and hospitality through an ongoing dialogue between Tokyo and Mexico City, shaped by the longstanding friendship between Orozco and Ogata, as well as by Orozco's more than a decade of living and working in Japan. Bringing together two distinct creative practices, Project O+O reflects a mutual commitment to creating objects and experiences that embody the intelligence of materials, the hand of the maker, and the cultural traditions from which they emerge. The collaboration will continue to unfold in Mexico City in 2027.
Throughout the exhibition, Orozco and Ogata reveal how their respective practices are grounded in common values: simplicity, materiality, authenticity, craftsmanship, and human intention. While Orozco has long transformed everyday materials into unexpected artistic propositions, Ogata has dedicated his practice to reimagining Japanese craft traditions through architecture, design, and hospitality. Drawing on traditions from both Mexico and Japan, Project O+O proposes a space where function and contemplation, utility and artistic expression, coexist, allowing objects to be experienced simultaneously as works of art, everyday tools, and carriers of cultural memory.
Among the works presented are a chess set from Orozco's home, reconstructed in paper by skilled craftspeople using molds taken from the original pieces; an original artwork realized on tissue and toilet paper, transforming one of the most ordinary and disposable materials into a singular work of art; and a spoon commonly used in Mexico, lacquered by hand in Japan using traditional urushi techniques.
The exhibition extends into a culinary program celebrating the traditions of Orozco's native Mexico while honoring Ogata's renowned exploration of food, tea, and the rituals of hospitality. During the day, visitors are invited to enjoy casual tacos, while evenings feature a reservation-only omakase experience. Both are served on custom-designed tableware created by Ogata in collaboration with Cooperativa 1050° Oaxaca, where ceramics, utensils, food, beverages, and the act of sharing a meal become integral components of the exhibition itself.
Project O+O proposes that the exhibition is not simply a place to view objects, but a space to inhabit. By bringing together art, design, craftsmanship, and hospitality, it creates an environment in which making, using, contemplating, and sharing become inseparable, giving rise to experiences that exist only in the moment yet endure as memories.
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Gabriel Orozco
Working through drawing, photography, sculpture and installation, Orozco draws from everyday materials and circumstances, as well as from his own encounters and routines. Among his best-known works are drawings on airline boarding passes, a modified Citroën automobile (La DS, 1993), Empty Shoe Box (1993) and a whale skeleton covered in graphite patterns (Mobile Matrix, 2006). Over the past decade, he has expanded this engagement through a series of large-scale landscape projects: a permanent garden for the South London Gallery (2016), the cultural master plan for Chapultepec Park in Mexico City (2019–present), and a site-specific garden commission for the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul (2026). Orozco has presented major exhibitions at leading institutions worldwide, among them The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); Tate Modern, London (2011); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2015); The Noguchi Museum, New York (2019); and Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2025). He has participated in the Venice Biennale several times (2017, 2005, 2003, and 1993) and in Documenta (2002 and 1997). His work has been the subject of more than 25 monographs.
Shinichiro Ogata is a leading figure in Japanese craft and design, and the founder of Simplicity Co. He lives and works in Tokyo and Paris. Ogata has spent his career working with traditional Japanese craftsmen, materials, and techniques to define a contemporary way of being, rooted in the culture and traditions of Japan. In Japan, he has developed his own specialized establishments, including tea houses, restaurants, tea and confectionery brands, and a collection of handmade craft objects. In addition to his own company's brands, Ogata directs a wide range of projects across architecture, interior, product, graphic, and packaging design, always grounded in craftsmanship. He founded OGATA to share this work with a wide international community.