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The core of Pedro Pires' approach : recovering everyday objects in the cities where he exhibits.
Pedro Pires' sculptures often incorporate a wide range of media, everyday utilitarian and mass-produced objects. The artist deliberately uses objects that belong to the everyday life of the cities where he exhibits, with the objective of creating a contrast between the usual use of these objects and the gallery or exhibition space.
In 2021, for "Duality" - his solo exhibition at LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery - Pedro created two antropomorphic sculptures made from African brooms or buckets collected in Abidjan, with feet molded on his own body. In 2022, during his residency on the island of Gorée for the Dakar Biennale, Pedro Pires also worked to recover materials related to his creative space. This led to the creation of two life-size anthropomorphic sculptures: one, made of 144 meters of fabric braids, and the other, conceived from an abandoned Gorean fisherman's boat.
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Pedro Pires, 144 meters, 2022 -
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Anthropomorphic sculptures as vehicles of identitary questioning
By molding the busts and heads of this series on his body, Pedro Pires roots his approach in his own interrogations about identity. As an Angolan and a Portuguese, Pedro Pires explores what forges identity and belonging feelings. His sculptures represent this duality, a new armor, even a new identity for the bodies. By "humanizing" these everyday objects, the artist also intends to confront the viewer with his double, his doppelganger. Through the symbolism of wax, Pedro Pires invites us to question the origins of identity and its future construction.
"The wax fabrics are part of the social aesthetics of many cities where I have been, one of them being Luanda, where I was born. I wanted to use this fabric in relation to the body - specifically to the head – to talk about a desire to belong, a desire to be an individual with many “allegiances” like Amin Maalouf explores in his book On Identity."
Pedro Pires -
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