ALEXIS DAHAN — Do you associate yourself with being both intellectual and street? GABRIEL OROZCO — Yes. I’m intellectual because my life is like that, and I enjoy high levels of philosophy and reading and all that, and then the street-level, gang-style, trashy everyday life is very important for me, as well.
[....]
OLIVIER ZAHM — The world is more roduct-oriented?
GABRIEL OROZCO — The world is also just foggier, noisier, and trickier. It’s very hard to see. And for an artist who has avant-garde ideas today, it’s really hard to really be visible. There are many fake avant-garde
things.

RA: How do you go about creating those codes? Can you talk me through the process? TE: Your brand is like your village and you have a totem pole. When you enter the village, the totem has different iconography that explains the history, the soul, the ideology of the village or tribe. That’s what I endeavored to create with Denim Tears. Black Jesus with the cotton crown is one of those icons. The polo flips, 1619, the African flag, the peace symbol cotton wreath, the regular circle cotton wreath, the anarchy circle cotton wreath. There was a girl [Sinéad O’Connor] on Saturday Night Live ripping up the Pope and I changed it out and put a picture of white Jesus. Let's say that I would’ve died, images and iconography could’ve guided a successor to do their own thing that’s different but the same. That’s why I want to build a library of assets within Denim Tears that aren’t necessarily clothing, so that the story can go on with or without me.