Matheus Rocha Pitta’s first solo exhibition in Belgium, Feed, brings the universal into confrontation with the mundane. The five sculptures and one print frame the black hole, whose first photograph was captured in 2019, as “a cosmic anal accumulation device”: a vanishing point that engulfs all values. Such grandeur is deflated by the playful orbiting of the celestial body around the everyday: newspapers, plastic bags, and pizzas form a precarious constellation within the exhibition.
Matheus Rocha Pitta (born 1980 in Tiradentes, MG, Brazil) has spent much of the past years investigating forms and perceptions of gestures. Focusing on the intersection between everyday life and art, he disconnects gestures from their individual biographical backgrounds and presents them as deliberate aesthetic acts with a historical dimension. Rocha Pitta uses photography, video, and sculpture to identify and construct his own repertoire of gestures, which he activates in conjunction with the visitors and spectators of his works.
He has created several series of works—including The Curfew Sirens (Kunstverein Hamburg, 2020), Primeira Pedra (The First Stone, 2015, Pinacoteca de São Paulo), and Assalto (Assault, 2014, Taipei Biennial)—that use gestures to explore language, possession, and movement in ways that carry far-reaching ethical implications.
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