Pepón Osorio

For over 35 years, Pepón Osorio has examined critical conversations on race, gender, and identity as well as structural inequalities in the United States healthcare, education, and prison systems. Across communities in the South Bronx, East Harlem, Hartford, Newark, and Philadelphia, Osorio’s practice engages those who are often rendered invisible or excluded from histories of artistic production. His installations operate as social architectures—reconfiguring classifications of who art is for and where it can be found.

About Pepón Osorio
Pepón Osorio (born 1955, Santurce, Puerto Rico) is best known for his large-scale installations. Over a nearly three decade career—first presenting work in unconventional locations and then in museum settings—the artist explores the subjectivity of meaning in art and the multiple meanings that his installations achieve depending on their location. Osorio emphasizes the exhibition space as an intermediary between the social architecture of communities and the mainstream art world. His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the 1993 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas, Venezuela; Africus Institute for Contemporary Art, Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Santurce, PR; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia PA.; the 27th. Sao Paulo Bienal, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum both in NYC and at storefronts, department stores, and homes in many locations throughout the world.

Portrait by Sam Fritz.