Gabriel Kuri -Wednesday Lectures

Now based in Brussels, Belgium, Gabriel Kuri was born in Mexico City, Mexico He received his BA in Visual Arts at Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (UNAM) in Mexico City. In 1995 he completed his MFA at Goldsmiths University of London.

Kuri’s work bares resemblance to Duchamp’s readymade works. His exhibitions focus heavily on mundane, everyday objects that have sparked his interest. He believes that if the work says too much for itself, then the viewer has nothing to complete. If a piece of work provides too much of an obvious ‘meaning’ there is then no thought process for the viewer, no interest or engagement.

Large material wall hangings were commissioned by Kuri, an exact replica of receipts he had received. He often chose more interesting ones to be created, ones where they had been stuck in the machine and all the text was crumpled and overlaid, or ones with the ink spread across to let the cashier know that the receipt paper is coming to an end. The ones with character. This specific body of work sparked my interest as I work on tills in a large retailer, and hadn’t before thought about the possibility of creating art with such a disposable thing. Day to day I see hundreds of receipts, some screwed up and mangled in the machine, some with ink on all curly as its the end, now I think of them more interestingly. As an artist I think many of us can agree that we become hoarders, I frequently look that the things we are supposed to throw away, boxes, paper scraps etc and believe that they could be kept and reused or made into something new, Gabriel has demonstrated that that is possible in a different way.

I like how he organises his work so that the public engagement is part of the piece. He created a sculpture that on its own was very simple, he then turned that into a ‘cloakroom’ for the event. Letting people leave their bags or coats on the sculpture whilst they viewed the rest of the exhibition. This changed the sculpture though out the day, changing the way it was viewed and used.

Overall I enjoy the work of Gabriel Kuri. Although upon first inspection his work might not seem like much, or may not seem like he has handcrafted much himself, his work resonates with me as I often think things just as they are look very creative and presentable. There is much beauty in the world if you choose to view it through a creative mind. He thinks and categorises boring stuff in a similar way to me, I just don’t think I have the confidence or believe my work to be creative enough to be presented in such a way. In the future I think with my work and exhibitions I need to think more engagingly about the viewers point of view, not just as the presenter of the art, placing pieces of work in interesting places such as the smoking area just like Kuri.