Pedro Cabrita Reis's Body as Measure in Rome Exhibition

Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis (born 1956 in Lisbon) presents a new exhibition in Rome where his own body serves as the conceptual and physical measure. The show comprises four works installed across two different spaces, each corresponding to a specific body position: standing, lying down, leaning, and with arms open. These works translate real, physical data into pure abstraction. Since the early 1990s, Cabrita Reis has favored industrial materials such as cement, bricks, steel, and wood, often combined with neon lights and pigments, to create highly poetic pieces. A notable example is his 2015 outdoor work 'La Casa di Roma' at the Maxxi museum, still on view. The artist's body is a constant presence across his sculpture, painting, and photography, conceived as a private space and inner universe projected outward. Cabrita Reis asserts that humanity must once again become the measure of all things, a message he considers political, transcending recent social upheavals and economic or market laws. The exhibition is covered by Michele Luca Nero for Artribune.