An exciting new monograph on Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo documenting over 20 of his public projects in one volume for the first time, including 4166 Sea View Lane, Tecoh, L’Arlatan and many more.

 
 

With his eye-catching, eclectic outlook that expands the possibilities of everyday objects and spaces, Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo has toed the line between designer, architect, and craftsman for over thirty years. From his signature sculptural lamps to his vibrant paintings to his wide-ranging installations, Pardo’s work engages viewers in visual delight while questioning distinctions between fine art and design. Nowhere is his dynamism on display at a greater scale than in his numerous public projects and commissions.

Jorge Pardo: Public Projects and Commissions, 1996–2018—the first monograph to focus strictly on the artist’s public works—documents, in extensive detail, twenty-four seminal projects and installations from Pardo’s oeuvre. In nearly 300 richly illustrated pages with over 200 full-color reproductions, including specially commissioned photographs, the book takes a close look at the private residences, museum installations, city squares, cafés, and other commissions that Pardo transformed with his energetic touch. These projects include 4166 Sea View Lane, Pardo’s earliest public work; his famous redesign of the Dia Center for the Arts lobby in New York City; and Tecoh, one of his most ambitious and largest works to date. Alongside text contributions by Emma Enderby, Maja Hoffman, and Ian Volner, Jorge Pardo also presents twelve of the artist’s never-before-seen “unrealized projects,” discussed in conversation with curator and art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist. Designed by Garrick Gott, the colorful pages are housed between a raised cover that replicates the mosaic tile floor of the boutique hotel L’Arlatan, one of the artist’s most celebrated accomplishments.

Jorge Pardo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1963 and studied at the University of Illinois, Chicago and received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Pardo’s artwork explores the intersection of contemporary painting, design, sculpture, and architecture. Employing a broad palette of vibrant colors, eclectic patterns, and natural and industrial materials, Pardo’s works range from murals to home furnishings to collages to larger-than-life fabrications. He often transforms familiar objects into artworks with multiple meanings and purposes, such as a set of lamps displayed as both sources of illumination and as freestanding sculptures, or a sailboat exhibited as both a utilitarian, seaworthy vessel and as a striking obelisk. Working on small and monumental scales, Pardo also treats entire public spaces as vast canvases. Pardo engages viewers with works that produce great visual delight while questioning distinctions between fine art and design. Jorge Pardo currently lives and works in Merida, Mexico.