Meet the artist: Enter the playful mind of sculptor Rodrigo Garagarza
Rodrigo Garagarza is a Mexican sculptor known for turning familiar childhood objects into striking, large-scale artworks. His sculptures often take the form of traditional Mexican toys like matatenas (jacks), spinning tops, and other playful shapes—only much, much bigger. By scaling up these everyday forms to the size of cars, he invites viewers to see them in a new way: not just as toys, but as beautiful symbols worth pausing to admire, as if seeing them again for the first time (from the perspective of an ant).
Based in Mexico City, Garagarza originally trained as an architect and worked for years designing spaces and exhibitions before shifting fully into sculpture. That background shows up in the sharp geometry and careful balance of his forms. Since founding his studio in 2011, his work has been exhibited in places like the Palacio de Minería in CDMX and the San Antonio Botanical Garden in Texas, and has been collected by private patrons and institutions alike—including Casa Polanco, a boutique hotel in Mexico City that champions contemporary Mexican artists.
His work is both fun and thoughtful—rooted in memory, but designed to make an impression in the present. Whether placed in a museum courtyard or in the middle of a busy plaza, his sculptures play with balance, geometry, and nostalgia. In this event, Garagarza will talk about the ideas behind his work, how he chooses his forms, and what it means to bring a sense of play into serious spaces.
At our space in Paris he will show some of his sculptures at yet another scale — the size of beachballs.