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Video | Artist Talk Pedro Reyes


In the exhibition «Pedro Reyes. Return to Sender» the focus is on Reyes group of works Disarm, with the new series Disarm Music Box (2020) being created for the exhibition. These music boxes made of pistol and rifle barrels play compositions from the weapon manufacturers' countries of origin. They present a special «upcycling» process in which the weapons are transformed into musical instruments in a sort of alchemical operation.

On Thursday, 5 November 2020 Reyes spoke in his Artist Talk with Roland Wetzel, director of Museum Tinguely and curator of the exhibition, about the creation of the work group Disarm, which has concerned him since 2007, and addresses from a pacifist perspective the vision of preventing the increasing accumulation of weapons in the world. In this way he denounces the inhuman profit motives of arms manufacturers, and - with a film clip - the toxic, but also ridiculous discourses on warfare.

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Pedro Reyes. Return to Sender

Pedro Reyes. Return to Sender

For his works, Pedro Reyes (b. 1972 in Mexico City) uses architecture, sculpture, video, performance, and participation to promote collective and individual power of action in political, social, ecological, and educational situations. Having worked with weapons in the past, he is interested in addressing the systemic problems of the arms industry within a pacifist framework. In the new production to be presented at Museum Tinguely Disarm Music Box (2020) he has repurposed gun parts to make music boxes that perform fragments of tunes from the countries where the guns were produced. Reyes is concerned with «upcycling»-transforming an instrument of death into a musical instrument that stands for dialog and exchange.


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