Leandro Erlich

Mori Art Museum Tokyo

Brave, bold and beautiful, albeit arresting and amusing, the works of Leandro Erlich have intrigued viewers world wide. The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo is staging a exciting show of this internationally acclaimed Argentinian artist. Entitiled “Seeing and Believing” this show will be the artist largest solo exhibition ever. Showcasing approximately 40 works produced from 1995 to 2017 including works that are massive installations to video projections. Early works by Erlich’s employ optical illusions and sound effects to test our common sense. His grand works include architectural installations that allow the viewer to enter the work, thus becoming part of it. About 80 percent of the exhibited works in this show will be making their Japanese debut. Previously installed in New York’s MOMA PS1 and famously in Japan in the courtyard of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the installation Swimming Pool delighted visitors, both in and out of the pool.

Leandro Erlich: The Swimming Pool 2004. Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Photo: Kioku Keizo.

Seeing Is Believing

Another Reason To Visit Toyko This Fall.

In the “Bâtiment (building)” series, Erlich uses a mirror effect to create scenes in which people appear to be hanging from the wall of a building. Employing visual and other bodily devices, he burrows into the corners of reality that we take for granted and offers up some surprising experiences.

Erlich describes his works as “windows concealed in the everyday, that make us turn our gaze to new worlds. A reflection upon the architecture of reality.” Indeed, as well as finding such “tricks” fascinating, audiences come to realize that the reality they thought they knew can, through experience and a change of viewpoint, be revealed as a totally different world.

This first major solo exhibition by Leandro Erlich in Tokyo will run from mid-November 2017 to April 2018.

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.