Deceptively whimsical objects serve as excellent vessels for more substantial messages, as is the case with Ariel Rojo’s artwork. The Mexico City-based artist has a practice of infusing quotidian housewares with politically-charged subtext, as we discovered at the México booth earlier this month at the New York International Gift Fair. A ceramic pig with the curly-cue tail of a fluorescent lightbulb saves energy rather than pocket change, to promote ecological sustainability; plastic figures of melting ice cubes not only lift your laptop off the table to prevent overheating, they also condemn global warming.
And what appears to be a playful desert scene of cowboys and cacti carved into panels of stainless steel is something more sinister: looking more closely, there are coyotes, skeletons, and gun-toting outlaws dotting an inhospitable landscape between Mexico and the United States. It’s an art object weighed down with layers and layers of symbolic meaning, a nod to the 7,178,000 detentions registered at the Mexican border between 2000-2005, the so-called mojados, or wet-backs, in search of a better life.
“I think the design is a tool, not a goal,” Rojo told ARTINO via email. “For this reason my design aims to create a moment of reflection on everyday objects.” This one, if you couldn’t tell, is a dishrack.
To see more works by Ariel Rojo, click the slide show.