Hasta La Ideas

Brought to Brooklyn with the Guggenheim’s support, Pedro Reyes’ Sanatorium is a utopian clinic of topical treatments for those inner-city afflictions we are all too familiar with: stress, loneliness and hyper-stimulation.

The Mexican architect-turned-artist is best known for this action intellect, looking to develop projects steeped in public policy and social activism. He says “I have a mini manifesto which is ‘old museums were fridges, new museums are ovens,’ so I believe that an institution can be more the activator of a process than the recipient of a finite product.”

Sanatorium is community in practice at its core value. At the downtown Brooklyn clinic, the converted commercial space gives off the florescent-lit starkness of a hospital further aided with a room full of white coat specialists.

“The Department of Mudras” in Sanatorium by Pedro Reyes.

After your $15 admission, you are asked to state your personal conflict, something along the lines of ‘what is your ailment?’ The receptionist then develops a healing plan. I stated general anxieties over deadlines. And I was prescribed the following therapies: Ex-voto, “The Department of Mudras,” and a group session called “The Tuning Effect” to recalibrate the senses.

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