Damián Ortega: Matter and Energy showcases over three decades of work by Damián Ortega, a leading artist of his generation, encompassing myriad media, including photography, video, sculpture, and installation. Ortega invites viewers to reconsider everyday materials and objects to explore social, economic, and political narratives. In his iconic sculptural practice, the artist dismantles objects such as cars and motorcycles and reorganizes their parts, displaying them in new configurations. This idea of rearrangement also appears in works where he gathers tools, stones, or bricks in suspended assemblies. The reorganization of these objects in the form of spatial diagrams is often humorous and contains political and social commentary.
The exhibition highlights important works from Ortega’s career, including large-scale installations like Cosmic Thing (2002) and Controller of the Universe (2007), sculptures made of concrete and corn, as well as photographic polyptychs investigating aspects of Brazilian architecture and urbanism. Organized in partnership with the Museo de Arte Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires (MALBA), the show marks Ortega’s first survey exhibition in South America, and will also travel to Centro Cultural La Moneda (CCLM), in Santiago, Chile, where it will be on view from November 2026 to March 2027.
Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, MASP, Rodrigo Moura, artistic director, MALBA, Yudi Rafael, assistant curator, MASP, and Isabela Ferreira Loures, curatorial assistant, MASP.
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