VANCOUVER.- PACE IN SPACE!, the newest Offsite exhibition from the Vancouver Art Gallery is now featuring the work of internationally acclaimed Mexican artist, Pedro Reyes. PACE IN SPACE! is a project about walking. Inspired by mythology, taxonomy and evolving technologies that seem to have a mind of their own, the sculptures in PACE IN SPACE! blur the lines between animal and machine. With humour, Reyes imagines a future where hybrid creatures walk among us.

The installation brings us face to face with a set of creatures that resemble cars with legs, offering us a moment to pause and reflect on our surroundings. Cars belong on the street, but these creatures inhabit the sidewalk, existing alongside other two and four-legged beings.

Installed on a busy downtown thoroughfare amid towering buildings, Reyes’ assemblage of oversized and colourful critters poses existential questions to viewers and passers-by. Are they machines, animals or animatronic hybrids? The creatures engage with the public intellectually and physically, illustrating the complex influence of artificial intelligence and machine learning on our everyday lives.

“We are thrilled to present this new work commissioned for Vancouver Art Gallery’s Offsite space,” states Vancouver Art Gallery CEO & Director Anthony Kiendl, “Pedro’s reputation as a leading thinker and creator of art in the public sphere and our collective imagination is thought-provoking and compelling. We are thrilled to welcome Pedro back to Vancouver with this outstanding work of art.”

PACE IN SPACE! is combined with a series of participatory walking sessions with the audience as an integral part of the work. Like many of Reyes’ past projects, PACE IN SPACE! integrates participatory strategies that seek to engage the community. Walking sessions will occur throughout the run of the exhibition. Please see the Gallery’s website for details.

Offsite: Pedro Reyes is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery on behalf of the City of Vancouver Public Art Program and guest curated by Makiko Hara.

Pedro Reyes (Mexico City, 1972) studied architecture but considers himself a sculptor. His works integrate elements of theatre, psychology and activism and take a variety of forms, from penetrable sculptures to puppet productions. Significant works include Palas por Pistolas (2007–present), Sanatorium (2011), Disarm (2013), pUN: The People’s United Nations (2013) and Doomocracy (2016). Reyes was commissioned by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists together with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—winners of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize—to raise awareness of the growing risk of nuclear conflict.

Reyes held a visiting faculty position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016. For his work on disarmament, he received the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2021. In the last year, Reyes has held three survey exhibitions: Escultura Social at the Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art (MARCO) in Monterrey, Mexico; Sociatry at MARTa Herford in Herford, Germany; and DIRECT ACTION at SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico.

GUEST CURATOR

Makiko Hara is an award-winning independent curator, lecturer, writer and art and cultural consultant based in Vancouver. From 2007 to 2013, she was Chief Curator/Deputy Director of Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. In addition, she has worked with many visual artists on a variety of projects as an independent curator, including Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto, 2009; AIR YONAGO, Tottori Geijyu Art Festival, Yonago, Japan, 2014–15; Fictive Communities Asia – Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama, Japan, 2014; and Rock Paper Scissors: Cindy Mochizuki, Yonago City Museum of Art, Tottori, Japan, 2018. Hara was appointed Guest Curator of the 2014 Koganecho Bazaar, and in 2017, she was invited to join the advisory team at the International Exchange Center, Akita University of Art, Japan. Hara co-founded Pacific Crossings, a British Columbia–based curatorial platform, in 2018. Pacific Crossings has initiated and organized numerous conversations, residencies and both online and offline cultural exchanges across the Pacific. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020, Hara founded My Kitchen Anthropology Museum, where she organized solo exhibitions by Hank Bull and Marcia Crosby. Hara received the Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize in 2020.

The exhibition opened to the public on May 5, 2023 and will continue until October 8, 2023.