Pedro Cabrita ReisA few lines, a possible staircase and a facade inside

The Arts Club of Chicago is pleased to announce a site-specific work by internationally acclaimed Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis. Continuing an investigation into the processes of construction, place, and materials recently highlighted in “A remote whisper,” a project conceived for the Pallazzo Falier at the 2013 Venice Biennale, Cabrita Reis transforms The Arts Club’s ground-floor galleries with industrial and found materials, including aluminum tubes, fluorescent lighting, electrical wiring, enamel panels, and Chicago ephemera. Conceived as a mini-residency in which he breaks down the barrier between the spaces of work and exhibition, the artist’s installation process is on view to the public on Monday–Tuesday, February 16–17, 11 am–3 pm, in order for visitors to gain an inside view of the artist’s methods of design and fabrication, and at convenient times, the opportunity to converse with him.

Born in Lisbon in 1956, Cabrita Reis is known for a painterly approach to materials traditionally viewed as minimalist. Reaching for mass-produced steel tubing, fluorescent lights, or even recycled tires as modular units, he sets up functioning systems while inflecting them with a poetic quality through their combination with found or deteriorating matter. For Cabrita Reis, discarded objects carry memories that the artist mediates by repurposing and re-contextualizing them. His installations therefore leave aside questions of specific meaning, and instead, produce an experiential effect. As one moves among Cabrita Reis’s constructions, angles of vision shift and change focus. The building’s own architecture, along with the body of the viewer, thus become framing devices for material vignettes. At The Arts Club of Chicago, Cabrita Reis considers the celebrated Mies van der Rohe staircase as a point of departure for a newly conceived environment.

Pedro Cabrita Reis lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. Solo exhibitions have been held at The Power Plant, Toronto (2014), De Vleeshal, Middleburg, The Netherlands (2014), Tate Modern, London (2011), Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2011), M – Museum for Contemporary Art, Leuven (2011), Carré d’Art, Nîmes, (2010), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2009), Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2009), Fondazione Merz, Torino (2008), Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2006), Kunsthalle Bern (2004), Camden Arts Centre, London (2004). He represented Portugal at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. Group exhibitions have included the Biennale de Lyon, France (2009), two São Paulo Biennales (1994 and 1998), and documenta IX, Kassel (1992). His work is in the permanent collections of Tate Modern (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporânea (Porto), Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (Vienna), and Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin), among many other international institutions.