Gabriel Orozco : Impossible Utopias by Lily Cole

A Claire de Rouen publishing project.

As Director of Claire de Rouen, Lucy published Impossible Utopias: Gabriel Orozco – the first book by model, actress and social entrepreneur Lily Cole. It was originally written as an academic thesis, submitted to the University of Cambridge as part of Lily’s BA degree in History of Art. During production, Lily and Lucy worked closely with Orozco to create a typeface based on the artist’s handwriting. The book launched at the ICA, London, in June 2015.

‘Impossible Utopias is an original and elegantly-written meditation on the political potential of Gabriel Orozco’s subtle body of work. Starting out from a close reading of Observatory House, a lesser-known work by the artist that also doubles as his holiday home, Lily Cole develops a persuasive account of the momentary utopias that are opened up by Orozco’s playful experiments with everyday reality. In so doing, Cole also contributes to an urgent project to reassert the impossible possibility of utopian thought in and for the twenty-first century.’ (Luke Skrebowski, University Lecturer in the History of Art, University of Cambridge)