Fernando Ortega

Ciudad de México, México, 1971 

            Fernando Ortega's creative processes are based on everyday life. Through installation, performance, and sound, he modifies spaces, stages actions, and works with materials as dissimilar as spider webs and construction cranes. His projects take place in common spaces, where the mundane and the forgotten—those everyday things that happen in the background and go unnoticed—occupy a central place. 

            Ortega handles the subtlety of poetics but also the irruption of the unexpected. His pieces take on multiple forms because he exposes them to the variables of the environment: "Making art is an exploration of my own doubts and curiosities about the mysteries I find in the world," he explains to the Mexican gallery Kurimanzutto.

            His work was widely recognized at the 2003 Venice Biennale, when he presented Untitled (Fly Electrocutor Device), a work based on circumstances: One had to wait for something to happen. He installed a device on the ceiling that electrocuted every insect that landed on it, causing a general short circuit that plunged the place into darkness. Without light, the works could not be appreciated as they should.

            Ortega manages to surprise us in every piece he creates, mixing humor and wit; such is the case with the piece N. Clavipes conoce a S. Erard, (2008), where he brings the Nephila Clavipes spider and Sébastien Erhard, the first large-scale, French piano manufacturer, together. The poisonous and aggressive spider, which weaves a web up to one meter wide, is the protagonist of this installation, together with the maker of the pianos used by Beethoven, Chopin, and Fauré. The piece is composed with an 18th century harp, from which Ortega removed the strings and turned it into a sound canvas, on which the spider wove its own strings. The photographs document the insect's journey, moving from the shoulder, to the harmonic curve, from there to the crown and tuning pegs, and, finally, arriving at the instrument's core. The set of images connects an ancient object and a systematic approach to musical composition, while incorporating the way in which sound works in the natural world.

            With great simplicity, Fernando Ortega successfully disrupts the natural order of things. These experiences, although made through common and daily used elements, manage to escape the expected through unusual combinations that awaken new perceptions in the spectators of what is known. It is about ephemeral situations that combine great intellectual work and result in unique sensory experiences.