Damián Ortega made his international breakthrough at the Venice Biennale in 2002. There he presented a VW beetle that had been entirely disassembled. The work became a favourite with the audience in Venice.
The use of household materials which are assigned new, often surprising, generally politically motivated and ironically undercut significance is his modus operandi. Ortega attempts in his work to avoid blatant effects and to subvert received patterns of apprehension.
Ortega was nominated in 2007 for the »National Gallery Prize for Young Art« and was presented with it by Vanity Fair for his »Nine Types of Terrain« installation that was on display in Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof museum.
Damián Ortega plans to remain in Berlin even beyond his DAAD year, saying:
»I know no other city in which art is taken so seriously.«
