Artist Gabriel Orozco is the winner of the inaugural Americas Society Cultural Achievement Award. The Mexican-born artist will pick up the prize Tuesday, November 4, at a ceremony at the Americas Society headquarters in New York.

“Orozco has developed a fairly egalitarian relationship between different modes, instruments and relations of production,” Gabriela Rangel, Americas Society curator and visual arts director, told artnet News. Commending the annual award’s first recipient, Rangel described his practice as “somewhere between the artisanal and the industrial.” “His role as an artist is that of a mediator,” she said.

Internationally renowned for his concept-based sculptures, paintings, photographs and installations, the 52-year-old Orozco has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions in the past two decades, including a traveling exhibition, which debuted at MoMA in late 2009 and went on to a European tour.

The Americas Society praised Orozco, in a statement, for his “critical practice informed by post-colonial thinking.” Dedicated to bringing awareness of the sociopolitical debate that defines the Americas, the organization also showcases Latin American art and culture in its exhibitions and publications.

The award itself is a Constructivist-inspired work created for the Americas Society by Mexican designer Ariel Rojo. The award features the shapes of the North and South American continents rendered in blocky geometric forms. Works by Rojo are featured in “New Territories,” an exhibition of Latin American design on view at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, Nov. 4-April 6.

Americas Society Cultural Achievement Award designed by Ariel Rojo. courtesy Americas Society