Pepón Osorio: Storyteller Artist

Pepón Osorio did not plan to become an artist. In 1975, he left his home in Puerto Rico for New York City, where he studied to become a social worker. Interacting with the city’s Puerto Rican community through social work inspired Osorio to start making art. Many of the artist’s sculptures tell the stories of the people he has met.

Collaboration has always been important to Osorio. While preparing 2010’s Drowned in a Glass of Water (detail above, right), the artist interviewed families from the wealthy college town Williamstown, Massachusetts. He also spoke with working-class families from nearby North Adams. The resulting installation (art that tranforms a space) is based on the experiences of one family from each town that had lost a father to illness.

Each family’s story is portrayed in a scene, separated by a wall that runs down the center. One side shows a crowded living room filled with toys and kitschy decorations. A life-size doll in a red and white dress, representing the mother, stands to one side. In front of her is an empty wheelchair.

On the other side of the wall is a scene that looks like a peaceful backyard with a freshly mowed lawn and a swimming pool. Beside the pool, a TV monitor sits atop a hospital stretcher. The scene includes other symbols of wealth, such as a gold heart and an ornate picture frame. 

The entire work is installed on an 18-foot rotating turntable. As it slowly turns, the edges of each family scene blur. The mixing of the two scenes reminds viewers how each family’s experience is similar despite their economic differences.

Tina’s House/Home Visit (above), created in 1999, is a tabletop diorama that tells the story of the night one real-life family’s house burned down. The front yard shows Tina and her daughters after they escaped. The living room contains a jumbled-up pile of the furniture and other possessions that were damaged in the fire.

Although Osorio usually creates installations that are exhibited in galleries and museums, this work traveled to private homes across the country. It also made a few stops in Puerto Rico. Sending the art into homes is based on the Puerto Rican tradition of saint visits, where each family in a community hosts a painting of a Catholic saint for a week. How do you think your perception of the sculpture would change after hosting it for a week in your home?