Offsite: Pedro Reyes

Internationally acclaimed Mexican artist Pedro Reyes’ PACE IN SPACE! brings us face to face with a set of creatures that resemble cars with legs. Are they machines or animals or animatronic hybrids? Cars belong on the street, but these creatures inhabit the sidewalk, existing alongside other two- and four-legged beings. What is happening? Is one lifting its leg to the wall?

For PACE IN SPACE!—installed on a busy downtown thoroughfare amid towering buildings—Reyes has assembled a group of oversized, colourful and playful anthropomorphic critters. Transformers or perhaps frolicking dog- or frog-like creatures engage with the public intellectually and physically, illustrating the complex and rapidly increasing influence of artificial intelligence and machine-learning on our contemporary social fabric. Today, we’re experiencing a worldwide Turing Test in which machines are making art . . . but do they understand it?

Offsite is located at 1100 West Georgia Street, between Thurlow and Bute Streets, just west of the Shangri–La Hotel. Directions »

Images (below): Pedro Reyes, PACE IN SPACE!, 2023, site-specific installation at Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite, Photo: Kyla Bailey, Vancouver Art Gallery