Project O+O is a collaboration between artist Gabriel Orozco and designer Shinichiro Ogata.
Co-presented with kurimanzutto and cultural producer Jam Acuzar, the project transforms HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo into a temporary extension of Orozco’s home, a living exhibition where artworks, specially designed objects, and culinary experiences converge in an environment of artistic exploration.
Featuring new works by Gabriel Orozco, the exhibition explores the connection between art, gastronomy, and hospitality, reflecting the creative dialogue between Tokyo and Mexico City and the longstanding friendship between Orozco and Ogata. Additionally, Project O+O is a three-year project that travels across three cities: following this year’s presentation in Tokyo, the stage moves to Mexico City next year, in 2028.
Orozco’s ‘home,’ reconstructed in Tokyo
Drawing on their longstanding friendship and Orozco’s more than a decade of living and working in Japan, the exhibition transforms HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo into a temporary extension of Orozco’s home — bringing together artworks, personal objects, specially designed elements, architecture and food within a single environment.
Orozco has long transformed everyday materials and circumstances into unexpected works of art, while Ogata’s practice reinterprets Japanese cultural traditions through design, craft, food and hospitality.
The exhibition brings together works by Orozco with objects and elements drawn from everyday life, creating an environment inspired by his home and studio.
Among the works presented will be Orozco’s Samurai Tree paintings, based on the geometric movement of the knight in chess, alongside works that transform commonplace materials — from tissue paper and timber to colored tape — into singular artistic propositions.
Rather than separating art from everyday life, the exhibition invites visitors to spend time within Orozco’s world, where artworks, objects and tools coexist as part of a lived environment.
A culinary experience where Mexican and Japanese food cultures intersect
Food is an integral part of Project O+O.
Throughout the exhibition, a kiln fitted with a comal — the round clay griddle essential to Mexican tortilla-making — will be installed on site, where handmade tortillas are toasted fresh, one by one, and served by day as casual tacos, bringing Mexican culinary traditions together with Japanese ingredients and sensibilities.
In the evening, a reservation-only dinner explores the meeting of Mexican and Japanese food cultures through a specially created menu, paired with Mexican beer and Orozco’s own favorite tequila.
The experience extends to the table itself. Ogata has designed tableware made in Oaxaca in collaboration with Cooperativa 1050°, bringing Mexican craftsmanship into dialogue with his own approach to material and making. The dinner also brings peltre — traditional Mexican enamelware — into the mix, lacquered by Japanese artisans under Ogata’s direction.
Art, food, objects and hospitality come together as different expressions of the same act: making, using and sharing.
Project O+O: Gabriel Orozco at HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo is honored to welcome CASA DRAGONES as a collaborating partner.
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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
Founded SIMPLICITY in 1998 with the aim of creating a contemporary expression of Japanese culture. His work spans food, tea, confectionery and craft, as well as architecture, interior, product and graphic design. In Japan, he has created and directed a number of establishments, including HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo, Yakumo Saryo, SABOE, HIGASHIYA and S[es]. Ogata founded OGATA, opening OGATA Paris in 2020 and beginning its international development. In 2026, OGATA will open a ceramic studio in Lech, Austria, together with a boutique and accommodation, and launch an artist-in-residence programme inviting makers from Japan. Further activities are also planned in Provence, France, including an OGATA boutique, restaurant and ceramic studio. Alongside his own activities, Ogata works across a wide range of architecture, interior, product and graphic design projects. His representative works include Sansou Murata in Yufuin, WASARA, Intermediatheque at the University of Tokyo, Aesop, Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills and Hotel Almhof Schneider in Austria. His publications include HIGASHIYA, JIKI-FU, NENGE and OGATA, published by Rizzoli.
Jam Acuzar
Jam Acuzar is a cultural producer based between Tokyo and Manila. In 2013, she founded Bellas Artes Projects (BAP), an arts non-profit operating across Bataan and Manila dedicated to supporting creative and knowledge production through artist residencies, exhibition programs, and interdisciplinary collaborations. In 2016, BAP established ESKWELA, an alternative, experimental school fostering transdisciplinary thought in art-making and curatorial practice. From its inception until its closure in 2022, BAP served as a vital arts institution connecting international artists, curators, and diverse publics in the Philippines. Now based in Tokyo, Acuzar continues her practice in 2026 with the establishment of her namesake art agency, Jam Acuzar, alongside an upcoming project platform titled Propositions.
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