Gabriel Orozco | The Thing Quarterly

Gabriel Orozco
Issue #26
Silkscreened, laser-etched aircraft grade birch
San Francisco, USA: The Thing Quarterly, 2015

Edition of 1000

The current cycle of The Thing Quarterly issues are by Gabriel Orozco, Michelle Grabner (Summer), Jason Fulford & Tamara Shopsin (Fall), and Ricky Swallow (Winter, 2016). Orozco’s “Black Feather” boomerang comes in a custom-made box with a fold-out poster.



ALEXIS DAHAN — When and how did you start practicing the boomerang?

GABRIEL OROZCO — I guess about six years ago. I was spending summers in Burgundy, in France, buying kites for my son to fly. One shop sold boomerangs, which looked quite good, not like fake, touristy things that don’t work. I bought a couple and I spent a whole summer trying to fly them. After that I became passionate about boomerangs. Now it’s somehow my favorite sport. I have many different ones now.


ALEXIS DAHAN — How is a boomerang made? And could it be called a non-industrial object?

GABRIEL OROZCO — Boomerangs are non-industrial because of the limited demand. It’s a difficult sport. It’s not easy to throw. A lot of people are quickly disappointed because it’s so hard to throw, and then it doesn’t come back, and then you lose it and don’t want to hear about it again. First you need a very big field to learn to throw one. It goes very far and many fly away. That combination makes it unpopular. And then there are many shapes and many different boomerangs made of different materials. The original boomerangs were made of wood, but even in wood there many different techniques for making one, from one piece, laminated, or strip laminated, which bends the wood in layers. They’re also made of carbon and all kinds of plastics. They need a very precise design and it has to be cut and polished by hand. So it’s not industrial and the market is very small. Very few people in the world throw boomerangs. You have championships, world cups, and all that — I’ve met these people — but it’s a completely amateur sport. No one lives from boomeranging. They have jobs and most are engineers or mechanics or artists or scientists. I fly boomerangs at an airstrip. They fly planes; I fly boomerangs. Everybody flies something.




Read the full interview, here.

Purchase Issue #26, for $85.00 US, here.