Antonio O’Connell

Born in 1974 in Mexico City, Mexico
Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico

Antonio O’Connell (Mexico City,1974) is an installation artist and architect based in Mexico City. He studied architecture at the Universidad Marista and a master in fine arts at UNAM University, Mexico. He worked as an independent architect but his inclination towards experimental architecture led him to incursion in the realm of contemporary art.

In his work he questions the sense of “making” architecture and what this means, as well as its conceptual processes by exploring the boundaries between art and architecture in a rapidly transforming age, where the boarders of disciplines are seemingly elided.

His reflections concern the contrasting characteristics of architecture between pragmatic function and its ontological function, being the last what relates architecture to art. He confronts these two realms of conception by trying to reflect the reality of a contrasting world where imagination is a luxury for some but a necessity for others.

His work embodies through ephemeral structures the viral aspect of a decaying capitalist system, with an ironic view of the vernacular form of construction of the developing countries like in his country of origin and the spectacular iconic architecture of the developed ones.

He then questions the role architecture/art plays in closing the gap between the developed and the underdeveloped societies, being this gap a conceptual space that needs to be designed by all -not only architects or artists- in a world that is actually not united by technology and the immediate access to information, but by our quickly deteriorating environment.

Solo exhibitions
2014 – El Sexto Día, Inauguración Zona Maco, Televisa, San Ángel, Ciudad de México
2013 – Más Allá de la Arquitectura, Polyforum Siqueiros, Ciudad de México.
2009 – Jazzersice, MuAC, UNAM, Ciudad de México.
2008 – Inoculación, Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Ciudad de México.
2008 – Reconstrucción del Muro, Intervención al monumento y museo Cabeza de Juárez, Iztapalapa, Ciudad de México.
2007 – Virus, instalación permanente, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Estado de México.
2007 – Reconstrucción Idéntica de lo Deconstruído, Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Ciudad de México.
2006 – Metáfora de un Virus, Museo Universum, UNAM, Ciudad de México.
2005 – Caminando por el Sendero de la Luz, Casa Vecina, Callejón de San Ignacio, Centro Histórico, Ciudad de México.