Pedro Cabrita Reis (PT)Biography
Pedro Cabrita Reis was born in 1956 in Lisbon, the city where he lives and works. His work has steadily received international acknowledgement, thus becoming crucial and decisive for the understanding of sculpture from the mid-1980’s onwards. His complex work can be characterized by an idiosyncratic philosophical and poetical discourse embracing a great variety of means: painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, and installation composed of industrial, found materials and manufactured objects. By using simple materials that are submitted to constructive processes, Pedro Cabrita Reis recycles almost anonymous reminiscences of primordial gestures and actions repeated in everyday life. Centered in questions relative to space and memory, his works gain a suggestive power of association which reach a metaphorical dimension by going beyond the visual. The complex theoretical and formal diversity of the work of Pedro Cabrita Reis proceeds from an anthropological reflection which is contrary to the reductionism of sociological discourse. In fact, it is on silences and indagations that the work of Pedro Cabrita Reis is based and built on. He participated in important international exhibitions, such as Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992, the 21th and 24th São Paulo Biennales, respectively in 1994 and 1998, and in the Aperto of the Venice Biennale in 1997. In 2003, he represented Portugal in the Venice Biennale and participated in the X Biennale de Lyon - The Spectacle of the Everyday, Lyon, 2009. Pedro Cabrita Reis' work has been exhibited in several exhibitions organized by different museums and art centers, among them the following: Sometimes one can see the clouds passing by, Kunsthalle Bern, 2004; Stillness, Camden Arts Centre, London, 2004; True Gardens #3 (Dijon), FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, 2005; Pedro Cabrita Reis, MACRO; Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Roma, 2006; La ciudad de adentro, OPA, Guadalajara, 2007; True Gardens #6, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz 2008; Pedro Cabrita Reis, Fondazione Merz, Torino, 2008; La Línea del Volcán, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, 2009; Deposição, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, 2010, One after another, a few silent steps, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 2009; One after another, a few silent steps, Carré d’Art, Nîmes, 2010; Pedro Cabrita Reis. One after another, a few silent steps, M, Museum for Contemporary Art, Leuven, 2011, One after another, a few silent steps, Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisbon, 2011 and, currently on view at Tate Modern, London, till March 2013, States of Flux – Pedro Cabrita Reis. |
