When industrial matter becomes experience: Industrial materiality and phenomenology in Cabrita Reis, Kapoor, and Serra

Abstract

This article examines how industrial matter, when removed from its productive context, transcends its utilitarian function and operates as a generator of aesthetic and sensory experience. It argues that materials such as metal, glass, and industrial waste, when reintegrated into the artistic field, activate a phenomenological relationship that engages the observer's body and reorganizes spatial perception. In this process, materiality ceases to be a technical fact and becomes a critical presence that destabilizes traditional regimes of representation, function, and visuality. The research develops through the practices of Pedro Cabrita Reis, Anish Kapoor, and Richard Serra, whose works constitute paradigmatic examples of how industrial matter can reconfigure ways of experiencing and thinking about exhibition space. It is thus argued that contemporary art mobilizes matter beyond the object, transforming it into a conceptual and bodily operator capable of producing new forms of sensibility and thought.