Lucy+Jorge Orta

Lucy Orta (b. United Kingdom, 1966) and Jorge Orta (b. Argentina, 1953)

Lucy + Jorge Orta’s collaborative visual arts practice employs a diversity of media including drawing, sculpture and performance to realize major bodies of work that address key social and ecological challenges. Amongst their most emblematic bodies of work are: Refuge Wear and Body Architecture, portable minimum habitats bridging architecture and dress; Nexus Architecture investigates alternative models of the social link; HortiRecycling and 70 x 7 The Meal question local and global food chains and rituals of communal eating. OrtaWater and Clouds reflect on water scarcity and the problems arising from its pollution and corporate control; Antarctica considers the effects of climate change on migration; and Amazonia explores interwoven ecosystems and their value to interspecies wellbeing.

In recognition of their esteem and contribution to the arts, Lucy + Jorge Orta are the recipents of the Andy Warhol Foundation Visual Arts Award (2001) and Green Leaf Award for artistic excellence with an environmental message, presented by United Nations Environment Programme in partnership with the Natural World Museum at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway (2007). Their monumental Cloud Meteoros was selected for the inaugural Terrace Wires public art commission for St Pancras International in London (2013).

Numerous monographs have been published and their work has been the focus of major exhibitions and commissions, including: Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1994), 46th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition, Argentine representation (1995), 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa (1997), Secession, Vienna (1999); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2004), The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London (2015), Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, 51st Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition (2005), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; 9th Havana Biennale (2006), End of the World Biennial, Ushuaia and the Antarctic Peninsula (2007), Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2008), Natural History Museum, London (2010), MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (2012), Shanghai Biennale (2012), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2013), Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (2014), Parc de la Villette, Paris (2014), Museum London, Ontario (2015), Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester (2016), City Gallery Museum, Peterborough (2016), Emsherkunst, Rhur (2016), Humber Street Gallery, Hull (2017), Palazzo Vecchio, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, Museo Novecento, Florence (2019), Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin; New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (2021), Les Tanneries centre d'art contemporarin, Amilly (2021), Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2022), Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Riyadh (2024)

Their work can be found in foundations public and corporate collections including, France: CAPC Musée d’Art contemporain de Bordeaux / Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), Paris / Collection départementale d’art contemporain (FDAC), Seine-Saint-Denis / Conseil Général des Bouches-du-Rhône, Aix-en-Provence / Fonds régional d’art contemporain (FRAC) Lorraine / La Plaine Commune, Saint Denis / Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris / Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Cholet / Ville de Marseille / Ville de Nancy. Germany: Emscherkunst, Dortmund. Netherlands: DSM Art Collection, Heerlen / Sloten, Freisland. Italy: Fondazione Finstral, Renon / Fondazione Golinelli, Bologna / Fondazione Olivetti, Rome / Fondazione Zegna, Milan / MAXXI, Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome. UK: Historic England, / Smiths Row, Bury St Edmunds / Wellcome Collection, London / Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield. USA: Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa / Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, Boston / Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca

Credit: LUCY + JORGE ORTA

Archipelago (Silk Route South China Sea - Bay of Bengal).Textiles sourced from South East Asia, China, Japan, glass beads, silk and embroidery on linen.150 x 150 cm.2017-2018
During a research residency at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (Singapore, 2017) Lucy Orta took an interest in Javanese batik. Historically the motifs represented complex spatial concepts the abstract compositions of a communities’ lived experience depicted villages, burial sites, and agricultural cycles and given Indonesia’s seventeen-thousand-plus islands; it is likely that batik textiles also ...
Building on the cultural significance of textiles as storytelling devices and their role in maritime navigation, in the body of work Archipelago, Lucy Orta has created a series of textile maps. These maps represent principal islands in Southeast Asia, reproduced in vibrant textiles sourced in Singapore markets. Contemporary Java prints, Chinese jacquards, Japanese weave, and Malay embroideries represent the multi-ethnic communities living in Singapore and signal its history as an important maritime trading port.
Using traditional appliqué techniques, different fabric motifs are overlaid and padded to simulate an island topography. The patchwork islands are embellished with three-dimensional silk floral appliqués and embroidered with glass beads, materials historically traded via the Silk Route through the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal. These elements are placed onto large linen canvases embroidered with nautical lines and compass roses taken from early 17th-century maritime maps. Lucy Orta’s maps depict imaginary landscapes abundant with rich floral motifs and lush vegetation.
Using textiles as a medium, the body of work “Archipelago” reflects the broader cultural and ecological impact of the transcontinental network of economic and political interests that governed relationships between Asia and Europe, from the ancient Silk Route to the new China Belt and Road Initiative. Increasing global consumption, the massive deforestation of tropical forests in Malaysia and Indonesia releasing carbon into the atmosphere now pose a significant threat to our planet. The delicate beauty of floral motifs that repopulate the islands make a silent and poetic plea to curb human impact on our planet.
Photo source of the works: Provided by the artist
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