Installation Artist Jorge Pardo Among 2010 MacArthur Fellows

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today named 23 new MacArthur Fellows for 2010. Working across a broad spectrum of endeavors, the Fellows include a stone carver, a quantum astrophysicist, a jazz pianist, a high school physics teacher, a marine biologist, a theater director, an American historian, a fiction writer, an economist, and a computer security scientist. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future.

The recipients just learned, through a phone call out of the blue from the Foundation, that they will each receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years.

Among this year's 23 fellows is also installation artist Jorge Pardo whose visually seductive body of work 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; for one project, he used dramatic, multicolored tile work to redesign the ground floor of the Dia Art Foundation in New York City. For other projects, he has challenged traditional curatorial presentation with installations that consciously ignore the constraints of conventional museum and gallery spaces.

His construction and outfitting of a complete house for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a wooden jetty overlooking a lake for Skulptur Projekte Münster in Germany represent examples of his unique artistic approach. In reaching beyond defined aesthetic disciplines, Pardo is engaging viewers in the United States and abroad with works that produce great visual delight while questioning distinctions between fine art and design.

Jorge Pardo received a B.F.A. (1988) from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. His paintings, sculptures, and installations have been exhibited at numerous national and international venues, including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Palais des Beaux Arts (Lille, France), the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

For the complete list of 2010 MacArthur Fellows, click here.

Photos and video courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation