“I am not a person who reads obituaries,” says Gabriel Orozco. Yet the artist could not help but feel inspired when quirky—and at times, downright funny—obituary headlines would appear on the pages of The New York Times. Fascinated by headlines such as “Once a Rival to Shirley Temple” and “Master of Lightbulbs,” Orozco collected the most provocative, intriguing, or banal texts to create Obit, an artwork in which Orozco examines both how human life is reduced to language after death, and the semiotics of the news as a poetic entity. Through the recontextualization of obituaries in the form of a linguistic collage, Orozco calls attention to the drama and absurdity of the press’ perception of public life.

“It’s a little bit like a mausoleum,” Orozco admits. “I think it’s a very existential piece, in a way. It’s like we are all language… The way we behave and interact; we are language.”