As he says, “You re-invent with what’s there...you never accept anything as it is given to you.” For him, this additive process creates “an abundance that is not really there.” It is a way of personalizing and appropriating these inexpensive mass-produced objects.

El Chandelier (1987) and its accompanying performance, No Regrets (1987), with choreographer Merián Soto, commemorates the life of a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx.

Each coffin was filled with information about the victims who died which included different items such as heartwarming notes from friends and family, flowers, and even a mirror which was meant to help the viewer connect more personally to the piece.

In this piece, there is a covered body on the living room floor that viewers are led to assume is a woman who was murdered by her husband.

The dead body, which is hard to find in the overly-decorated living room, alludes to the way Latinos are often depicted as violent criminals in films.

The installation makes it clear that the real crime is how Puerto Ricans and Latinos are negatively depicted in mainstream films.

His focus on the Latino body didn’t fulfill his intentions of shedding more light upon the Puerto Rican community, although it did bring attention to his own personal work.

In 1994, Osorio created an installation called En La Barberia, No Se Llora (No Crying In the Barbershop), which he used to explore Latino masculinity.

He described the barber shop as a place where men would go on the weekends as a sort of social gathering to do business and also play dominoes.

Osorio had many different men from all ages featured in the videos for the installation as a way to portray and explore the issue of machismo in the Latino community.