Project O+O: Gabriel Orozco at HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo

Project O+O is a collaboration between artist Gabriel Orozco and designer Shinichiro Ogata.

Co-presented with kurimanzutto, alongside producer Jam Acuzar, the project transforms HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo into a temporary extension of Orozco’s home, a living exhibition where artworks, specially designed objects, and culinary experiences converge in an environment of artistic exploration.

Featuring new works by Gabriel Orozco, the exhibition explores the connection between art, gastronomy, and hospitality, reflecting the creative dialogue between Tokyo and Mexico City and the longstanding friendship between Orozco and Ogata. Additionally, Project O+O is a three-year project that travels across three cities: following this year’s presentation in Tokyo, the stage moves to Mexico City next year, and to Paris in 2028.

Celebrating the culinary traditions of Orozco’s native Mexico, the experience includes casual tacos by day and a reservation-only omakase by night, served on custom-designed tableware by Ogata in collaboration with Cooperativa 1050° Oaxaca.

Drawing on their longstanding friendship and Orozco’s more than a decade of living and working in Japan, the exhibition transforms HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo into a temporary extension of Orozco’s home — bringing together artworks, personal objects, specially designed elements, architecture and food within a single environment.

Orozco has long transformed everyday materials and circumstances into unexpected works of art, while Ogata’s practice reinterprets Japanese cultural traditions through design, craft, food and hospitality.

The exhibition brings together works by Orozco with objects and elements drawn from everyday life, creating an environment inspired by his home and studio.

Among the works presented will be Orozco’s Samurai Tree paintings, based on the geometric movement of the knight in chess, alongside works that transform commonplace materials — from tissue paper and timber to colored tape — into singular artistic propositions.

Rather than separating art from everyday life, the exhibition invites visitors to spend time within Orozco’s world, where artworks, objects and tools coexist as part of a lived environment.

Food is an integral part of Project O+O.

Throughout the exhibition, a kiln fitted with a comal — the round clay griddle essential to Mexican tortilla-making — will be installed on site, where handmade tortillas are toasted fresh, one by one, and served by day as casual tacos, bringing Mexican culinary traditions together with Japanese ingredients and sensibilities.

In the evening, a reservation-only dinner explores the meeting of Mexican and Japanese food cultures through a specially created menu, paired with Mexican beer and Orozco’s own favorite tequila.

The experience extends to the table itself. Ogata has designed tableware made in Oaxaca in collaboration with Cooperativa 1050°, bringing Mexican craftsmanship into dialogue with his own approach to material and making. The dinner also brings peltre — traditional Mexican enamelware — into the mix, lacquered by Japanese artisans under Ogata’s direction.

Art, food, objects and hospitality come together as different expressions of the same act: making, using and sharing.

Project O+O: Gabriel Orozco at HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo is honored to welcome CASA DRAGONES as a collaborating partner.

The partnership began organically: CASA DRAGONES is Orozco’s tequila of choice. But the connection extends beyond taste. Founder and CEO Bertha González Nieves has long held a personal connection to Japan, one that eventually led her to Mizunara oak — a rare wood native to Japan and traditionally reserved for aging Japanese whisky. In 2018, Casa Dragones became the first tequila house to import Mizunara casks to Tequila, Jalisco, working with Japan’s only independent cooperage to craft custom casks from the wood. The result, Casa Dragones Reposado Mizunara, is the first tequila ever rested exclusively in Mizunara oak — a direct expression of Mexican craftsmanship shaped by Japanese material and technique.

Guests can enjoy Casa Dragones Reposado Mizunara, alongside a selection from the brand, throughout their visit to HIGASHI-YAMA Tokyo, November 6–29, 2026.