Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabriel Moreno.
Gabriel, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois— about 33,000 people and lots of corn fields. I moved to Chicago in 2014 to pursue my Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Chicago. Things lined up just right, and I felt fortunate to study with that small, particular cohort. People like Jessica Stockholder, Pope L., and Theaster were artists I knew of and was excited to study with. My time there put me in touch with more people who I felt were asking the hard questions and putting themselves to the task. It was what I wanted.
Since graduating, I’ve been working at Arts and Public Life and pursuing exhibitions. I spend a lot of time juggling being an artist, designer, tradesman, and educator. Wearing these different hats has helped to establish new perspectives from which to view my work. The juggle helps me think in new directions.
Has it been a smooth road?
I feel my road has been a fortunate one thus far. Of course, there is a struggle — paying the bills, internal and external doubt, the juggle, encountering systemic problems, etc. — but I feel my larger arch is one that has benefitted from the struggles.
For perspective, I catch myself comparing my experiences to where my family has been. My father was born in Nogales, Mexico, and the family didn’t have much. However, he tells stories about watching flash floods from the roof as plates, debris, beds, wood — whatever — washed out the homes and down the street. He talks about his grandmother making bone soup, and how she let him suck the marrow because she liked him more than the rest. My mom talks about family members and family friends fleeing Europe during World War II. People who got lucky and people who disappeared alike. These immigrant perspectives were a prevailing context growing up — something I consider a root of my American-ness and perspective as an artist. As a result, struggle has become one beginning of storytelling for me.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Gabriel Moreno Studio – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
People remember me for the refrigerators — or at least this is what makes ’em smile. The original reason I picked fridges was to think through Galesburg, Illinois’s Maytag refrigerator factory — a narrative of boom, bust. I linger with the refrigerator though for how it expresses thermodynamics, memorial impulses, and preservation. All these are elements of the Galesburg work, and they became their own discrete themes in time. I’m looking into museums as socio-cultural refrigerators. I’m interested in Svalbard Seed Bank as a biological preservation chamber within the Arctic — a vanishing refrigerator in its own right. State memorials and “folk” memorials have numerous, distinct strategies for preservation vis-a-vis memorializing. How folk memorialize is different than how the state does it, and this is a core research question of mine right now. I’m looking at the Lincoln Memorial and Dia De Muertos Ofrendas in particular. I’m asking how their plastic and performative forms shape preservation. The refrigerator was a singular object that originally pointed to Galesburg, but since has pointed beyond.
A proud moment of mine was in May 2016 at the Galesburg Historical Society. The museum had collected the last three refrigerators made in the local Maytag plant. As they came off the assembly line, the workers collectively bought and signed them. In a moment, they declared a degree of independence that claimed ownership of their product. The museum placed my work — a self-supporting shelving system of re-assembled refrigerators and concrete casts — next to these readymade memorials.
What role has luck (good luck or bad luck) played in your life and business?
I don’t know how to talk about luck. I’ll answer the question this way— I once asked for funding to ride my bicycle 1,000 miles from Chicago, Illinois to Niagara Falls. I had no idea what I was going to make, and so the funders had no idea. I just knew I was going to work with photography and sculpture to document and respond to the travel. I knew exposure, moving through the environment, and labor was going to the theme.
I got the funding, survived the trip, and made some great work. That project helped me get into graduate school and influenced much of what has happened since. Luck seems to have a consistent presence throughout that story.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gabrielgranatmoreno.com
- Phone: 309-299-2443
- Email: gabriel.granat@gmail.com
- Instagram: ga_beh
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