As galleries around the world begin to slowly reopen, we are focusing on exhibitions at spaces that are now receiving public visitors. Check out this show at a newly reopened gallery below.

“Gabriel Rico: Nature Loves to Hide”
Through August 14 at Perrotin, Paris

What the gallery says: “Gabriel Rico’s formulas are brief and precise expressions to make, solve, or achieve something concrete. Thus, they are processes helping to resolve problems or carry out tasks with a series of symbols and rules. The big difference between mathematical formulas and Rico’s is that our artist’s symbols are ‘things’; objects steeped in value for being real by their very nature…

“… Contemporary hermeneutics, especially the interpretations triggered by French post-structuralism, offer plenty with which to interpret these ‘figures’ so they need not remain in a dark and indecipherable place. Somehow, the right questions emerge to challenge this type of construction. Thus, there are questions that rebuke from an unusual perspective and give unique meaning to these products. These are the questions asked by Gabriel Rico in this exhibition for Perrotin Paris.”

Why it’s worth a look: Rico (who describes himself as an “ontologist with a heuristic methodology”) creates delightful juxtapositions of objects according to a system he invented. The artist likes to use taxidermy animals “if the taxidermist did a good job,” he says—meaning, animals which can fool viewers into believing they are still alive.

While many of the reasons for his combinations aren’t immediately clear, close viewing is rewarded. In Rico’s Unity & Uniformity (La Mitla de hérétiques), a wall is covered with gold-plated feathers, all of them equally distanced—but two of them are real feathers, and not facsimiles.

What it looks like:

Installation view, “Gabriel Rico: Nature Loves to Hide” at Perrotin. Photo: Claire Dorn.

Gabriel Rico, III – from the series “Unity & Uniformity (La Mitla de hérétiques)” (2020). © Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.

Gabriel Rico, The taste of superlative and the admirable holiness (Brick I) (2020). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.

Gabriel Rico, II Mural, from the series “Reducción objetiva orquestada (2016 – 2021)” (2020). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and
Perrotin.

Gabriel Rico, To be Preserved without scandal and corruption, (2020). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and
Perrotin.

Gabriel Rico, Who reckons the close of his life among the boons of the nature? (The Jealous God), (2018). © Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.

Installation view, “Gabriel Rico: Nature Loves to Hide” at Perrotin. Photo: Claire Dorn.

Gabriel Rico, IV from the series “Let not the judge meet the cause halfway” (2018). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and
Perrotin.

Gabriel Rico, XI – from the series “Hipótesis del equilibrio local” (2019). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and
Perrotin.

Gabriel Rico, III from the series “Excessive butter” (2019). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and
Perrotin.

Gabriel RIco, Crudelitatem (I will say the romans that spread upon the world but it was the world that spread upon the romans) (2017). ©
Diego G. Argüelles / Courtesy of the artist and
Perrotin.