Pedro Cabrita Reis: Field

Description

Pedro Cabrita Reis (b. 1956, Lisbon), is one of Portugal's most gifted and imaginative artists, having forged an international career from the early 1980s with his challenging and innovative paintings, sculptures and architectural interventions. As a self-defined classical artist, Cabrita is known for his forays into past histories and collective memories to rejuvenate his art; manifesting and declaring new perspectives within our contemporary cultural conversations. Cabrita has exhibited in many museums, galleries and public exhibitions internationally and his works are in private and public collections throughout the world. Field dominates the vast interior of the church, spreading out, on, and across the central area of the nave. Its expansive, varied topography grounds and holds the floorspace, reinforcing the perception of the volumes above. The sculpture consists of an indeterminate grid of steel platforms which evoke the passerelle used during acqua alta conditions in the city. Complete within its boundaries, a multitude of uniform LED light tubes burn steadily on these platforms, underneath the occlusion of debris that appears to have rained down from above. The overlaid chaos of the debris field contrasts strongly with the regularity of the lights forming the grid below. Through Cabrita's use of vernacular materiality (industrial lighting, demolition fragments) which summon archaic conceptual mythologies (as above, so below; light versus dark), Field occupies a literal, as well as figurative middle space, setting up a state of affairs for the viewer to resolve physical, conceptual and spiritual tensions.

Nicholas Serota was Director of Tate from 1988 until 2017, where he led the creation of Tate Modern, the designation of the original gallery as Tate Britain and the development of new partnerships with galleries and museums across the United Kingdom. He is Chair of Arts Council England, a member of the Board of the BBC and continues to curate exhibitions, most recently a large exhibition for Bruce Nauman in London and Amsterdam. Michael Short is a curator living in Berlin. He has worked in the past with artists such as Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg, Richard Tuttle, Wolfgang Laib, Richard Long and Malcolm Morley. He recently curated the exhibition Evan Penny: Ask Your Body, which was presented during the 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2017.