Pedro Reyes

Pedro Reyes has won international attention for large-scale projects that address current social and political issues. Through a varied practice utilising sculpture, performance, video, and activism, Reyes explores the power of individual and collective organisation to incite change through communication, creativity, happiness, and humour. A socio-political critique of contemporary gun culture is addressed in Reyes’s Palas por Pistolas (2008), in which the artist worked with local authorities in Culiacán, Mexico, to melt down guns into shovels, intended to plant trees in cities elsewhere in the world. Similarly, in Disarm (2013) the Mexican government donated over 6,700 confiscated firearms for Reyes to transform into mechanical musical instruments, which are automated to play a delightful, if surreal loop, retaining the raw emotion of their origination. Issues of community and compassion are addressed in Sanatorium, activated at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2011, dOCUMENTA (13) in Germany in 2012, and in 2014 at The Power Plant in Toronto and The Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami. In this work, visitors are invited to sign up for a ‘temporary clinic,’ with the mission of treating various kinds of urban malaise. His immersive exhibition Doomocracy, organised by Creative Time at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, was a 'political house of horrors' marking the confluence of two events haunting the American cultural imagination at the time: Halloween and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Reyes (b. 1972, Mexico City) lives and works in Mexico City. He studied architecture at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City. Solo exhibitions have been held with Creative Time, New York, USA (2016); Dallas Contemporary, TX, USA (2016); La Tallera, Cuernavaca, Mexico (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2015); ICA, Miami, FL, USA (2014); The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada (2014); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, USA (2011); Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA (2011); CCA Kitakyushu, Japan (2009); Bass Museum, Miami, FL, USA (2008;) and San Francisco Art Institute, CA, USA (2008). Reyes has participated in group exhibitions at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2015); The National Museum of XXI Century Arts (MAXXI), Rome (2015); Beijing Biennale, China (2014); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2013); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); Liverpool Biennial, UK (2012); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2012); Lyon Biennale, France (2009); and the 50th Venice Biennale, Italy (2003). In Fall 2016, Reyes served as the inaugural Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist at MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Pedro Reyes
Sunstone, 2016
White onyx 80 x 27 x 25 cm / 31 1/2 x 10 5/8 x 9 7/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Totem, 2015
Volcanic stone 227 x 91 x 109.5 cm / 89 3/8 x 35 7/8 x 43 1/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Visual Bibliography IV (Notes on non-violence), 2015
Mixed media on stretched canvas 150 x 150 cm / 59 1/8 x 59 1/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Navaja Suiza VII (Swiss Army Knife VII), 2014
Mixed media sculpture 100 x 46 x 17 cm / 39 3/8 x 18 1/8 x 6 11/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Head of Karl Marx II , 2014
Volcanic stone 48 x 77 x 71 cm / 18 7/8 x 30 5/16 x 27 15/16 in. Base: 85 x 75 x 75 cm / 33 7/16 x 29 1/2 x 29 1/2 in.

Pedro Reyes
Colloquium (Ironism), 2014
Marble 240 x 220 x 180 cm / 94 1/2 x 86 5/8 x 70 7/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm: Installation view, Lisson Gallery, London, 2013
Installation view

Pedro Reyes
Disarm LP,
LP record

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Trigger Puller), 2013
Metal 118 x 170 x 170 cm / 46 7/16 x 66 15/16 x 66 15/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Xylophone), 2013
Metal 43 x 35 x 30 cm / 16 15/16 x 13 3/4 x 11 13/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Kalashniclock), 2013
Metal 110 x 115 x 115 cm / 43 5/16 x 45 1/4 x 45 1/4 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm, (Violin III), 2013
Metal Approx. dimensions: 67 x 23 x 13 cm / 26 3/8 x 9 1/16 x 5 1/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Psaltery), 2013
Recycled metal 32 x 89 x 24 cm / 12 5/8 x 35 1/16 x 9 7/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Pan pipes), 2013
Metal 18 x 21 x 15 cm / 7 1/16 x 8 1/4 x 5 15/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Mechanized), 2012
Recycled Metal Installation comprising of 8 mechanised instruments Dimensions variable

Pedro Reyes
Disarm (Wind Chime), 2013
Metal 166 x 65 x 65 cm / 65 3/8 x 25 9/16 x 25 9/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Melodrama and Other Games, 2012
Group activities, posters Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and FACT

Pedro Reyes
Pico della Mirandola, 2012
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Pedro Reyes
Machine Music (Tank 2) , 2013
Photographic print on canvas and collage 191 x 95 cm / 75 3/16 x 37 3/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Machine Music (Decoy), 2013
Photographic print on canvas and collage 124 x 94 cm / 48 13/16 x 37 in.

Pedro Reyes
Machine Music (Tank 9), 2013
Photographic print on canvas on wood 113 x 110 cm / 44 1/2 x 43 5/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Machine Music (Tank 8) , 2013
Photographic print on canvas and collage 105.5 x 210.5 cm / 41 9/16 x 82 7/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Imagine (Guitar), 2012
Recycled Metal 77 x 27 x 10 cm / 30 5/16 x 10 5/8 x 3 15/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Sanatorium, 2011- present
Group activity, props, relational objects

Pedro Reyes
Imagine (Rain Stick), 2012
Recycled Metal 90 x 15 x 20 cm / 35 7/16 x 5 15/16 x 7 7/8 in.

Pedro Reyes
Imagine (Tubular Bells), 2012
Recycled Metal 197 x 160 x 30 cm / 77 9/16 x 63 x 11 13/16 in.

Pedro Reyes
Baby Marx, 2008
Wooden puppets, library set, video production Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Pedro Reyes
Capula Expanded Dodecahedron, 2009 - 2010
Stainless steel frame woven in vynil cord

Pedro Reyes
Palas por Pistolas (Guns for Shovels), 2007 - present
Installation view at Biennale de Lyon, 2009 1,527 collected guns melted into steel to fabricate 1,527 shovels, to plant 1,527 trees. Artwork © Pedro Reyes. Photo by Stéphane Rambaud, Courtesy of Biennale de Lyon.

Pedro Reyes
Philosophical Casino II, 2008
Corian 72 x 51 x 52 cm / 28 3/8 x 20 1/16 x 20 1/2 in.

Pedro Reyes
Ciclomóvil, 2007-2009
Aluminium, mechanical parts

Pedro Reyes
Casino Filosófico, 2006
Corian structure

Pedro Reyes

Exhibitions