Leandro Erlich

Leandro Erlich (b. 1973, Buenos Aires) lives and works in Argentina. An architect of the uncertain, he creates spaces with fluid and unstable boundaries. Before one can make sense of his sculptures and installations, one senses the uncanny. A single change (up is down, inside is out) can be enough to upset the seemingly normal situation, collapsing and exposing our reality as counterfeit. Through this transgression of limits, the artist undermines certain absolutes and the institutions that reinforce them.

Leandro Erlich draws inspiration from his literary Argentinian forebear, Jorge Luis Borges, but references to the world of film also appear frequently in his work. Erlich makes no secret of his admiration for directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Luis Buñel, and David Lynch, whom, he argues, “have used the everyday as a stage for creating a fictional world obtained through the psychological subversion of everyday spaces.”

Between 1998 and 1999, Erlich took part in the Core Program, an artist residency at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In 2001, he was invited to represent his country in the 49th Venice Biennale. He then participated in the Biennials of Istanbul (2001), Shanghai (2002) and São Paulo (2004). He has also participated in the Whitney Biennial (2000) and the 1st Busan Biennale (2002). He was part of La Nuit Blanche de Paris (2004), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (2006), and the exhibition Notre histoire at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France in 2006, among others. In 2008, his installation La Torre was exhibited at Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain and he showed his acclaimed Swimming Pool at MoMA PS1 in New York in the same year. In 2012, he created a monumental outdoor installation, Monte-Meuble, l’Ultime Déménagement, in Nantes, France, and in 2013, The Barbican, Europe’s largest arts and conference venue, commissioned Erlich to create a new installation in the Dalston district of London, England. Recent solo exhibitions of Erlich’s include the Century Museum of Contemporary Art (2014, Kanazawa), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (2014, Korea), Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (2015, Buenos Aires), Neuberger Museum of Art (2017, NYC) and Espacio Fundación Telefónica (2017, Madrid).

Erlich’s works are included in several private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art (Buenos Aires), the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Tate Modern (London), Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (Kanazawa), MACRO (Rome), The Israel Museum (Jerusalem), and the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (Paris).