Pedro Cabrita Reis
02 Apr - 25 Jul 2015
PEDRO CABRITA REIS
il palazzo vuoto
2 April – 25 July 2015
After his one-man exhibition at the GAM in 2000, Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis returned to Turin at the Fondazione Merz in 2008 and also exhibited several times at the Galleria Giorgio Persano (1994, 1999 and 2005). He now returns with a new project called “il palazzo vuoto”.
This impressive work consists of more than nine tons of steel, a succession of beams, an inside/outside closer to a concept of building as anthropological or philosophical experience implying an awareness of the individual, rather than one of architecture considered by the artist as a sociological process able to create spaces of cohabitation which, as ultimate goal, aim to soften any social comparison.
“Il palazzo vuoto” materialises this striving for a place of identity.
As always, Cabrita’s work embraces a wide variety of media: painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, brought into use in combination with industrial materials and by recycling old artefacts. The objects are thus transported and re-assembled and so subjected to new construction processes, acquiring renewed meanings while maintaining reminiscences of almost anonymous everyday gestures and actions.
The large iron sculpture is accompanied by other works by the artist who, of course, also works with neon, concerning which it is worth recalling the recent, important project, “A Remote Whisper”, for the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. This exhibition presents the enigmatic “La settima luce in alto” (The seventh light up): 150 fluorescent lights, of which only one is switched on.
The artist, who has repeatedly claimed to be a painter who makes sculpture, has chosen on this occasion to present a number of his latest paintings, acrylic works on a linen canvas.
The works of Pedro Cabrita Reis are charged with the suggestive power of associations and, going beyond the visual field, reach a metaphorical dimension, becoming spiritual and contemplative places, finally assigned to silence.
il palazzo vuoto
2 April – 25 July 2015
After his one-man exhibition at the GAM in 2000, Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis returned to Turin at the Fondazione Merz in 2008 and also exhibited several times at the Galleria Giorgio Persano (1994, 1999 and 2005). He now returns with a new project called “il palazzo vuoto”.
This impressive work consists of more than nine tons of steel, a succession of beams, an inside/outside closer to a concept of building as anthropological or philosophical experience implying an awareness of the individual, rather than one of architecture considered by the artist as a sociological process able to create spaces of cohabitation which, as ultimate goal, aim to soften any social comparison.
“Il palazzo vuoto” materialises this striving for a place of identity.
As always, Cabrita’s work embraces a wide variety of media: painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, brought into use in combination with industrial materials and by recycling old artefacts. The objects are thus transported and re-assembled and so subjected to new construction processes, acquiring renewed meanings while maintaining reminiscences of almost anonymous everyday gestures and actions.
The large iron sculpture is accompanied by other works by the artist who, of course, also works with neon, concerning which it is worth recalling the recent, important project, “A Remote Whisper”, for the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. This exhibition presents the enigmatic “La settima luce in alto” (The seventh light up): 150 fluorescent lights, of which only one is switched on.
The artist, who has repeatedly claimed to be a painter who makes sculpture, has chosen on this occasion to present a number of his latest paintings, acrylic works on a linen canvas.
The works of Pedro Cabrita Reis are charged with the suggestive power of associations and, going beyond the visual field, reach a metaphorical dimension, becoming spiritual and contemplative places, finally assigned to silence.