Tomas Ochoa - LATIN AMERICA New York Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    KATZ CONTEMPORARY, Zürich; Private Collection, Switzerland

  • Exhibited


    Zürich, Miki Wick Kim Contemporary Art, Tomás Ochoa, May 22 - July 12, 2008

  • Literature


    Tomás Ochoa, Ashiro Edition, 2008

  • Catalogue Essay


    Ecuadorian born artist, Tomás Ochoa, explores the possibilities and limitations of various mediums. Working in video, painting and photography, Ochoa seeks to discover not only the boundaries of these mediums, but also the different layers of awareness present in a single image. The series Multitudes consists of a group of images depicting the incessant movements of passengers in the train station of Atocha in Madrid—the target of a series of terrorist attacks by radical Islamists on March 11, 2004. As captured in the title, Ochoa examines the political notion of the Multitude, defined by Paolo Vimeo as, “[consisting] of a net of individuals; the many are singularities.” Using acrylic, oil and digital photography on canvas, Ochoa skillfully captures the feeling of both being crowded yet alone in a chaotic urban setting. Ochoa collects stills from surveillance cameras and then layers them onto the canvas to record each individual’s path; the single image created from a series of images captures the idea of individuation within the mass. His camera becomes the tool of panopticism, as it is the eye that views humanity from a controlled perspective. According to this Foucaultian idea, society is both observed and contained. Ochoa adds one final layer to the canvas: printed on the pavement of the station’s halls and corridors is the complete text of “The Aleph”, the famous story by the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. In Borges’s story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. He who looks into the Aleph can see everything in the universe with great clarity. 7 Backpacks-Atocha Station is Ochoa’s visual representation of the aleph.

ECUADORIAN

159

7 Backpacks-Atocha Station (from the series Multitude)

2008
Mixed media on canvas.
82 1/2 x 94 1/2 in. (209.6 x 240 cm).

Signed and dated “Tomás Ochoa 2008” on the reverse.

Estimate
$10,000 - 15,000 

LATIN AMERICA

29 September 2010
New York