Mori Art Museum

Leandro Erlich

Seeing and Believing

18 Nov 2017 - 01 Apr 2018

Building 2004
Digital print on linoleum, light, iron, wood, mirror
800 x 600 x 1,200 cm
Installation view: Nuit Blanche, Paris, 2004
* Referential image
LEANDRO ERLICH: SEEING AND BELIEVING
The Largest Solo Exhibition of Leandro Erlich's to Date!
18 November 2017 – 1 April 2018

Curated by: Tsubaki Reiko (Curator, Mori Art Museum)

An Argentinian contemporary artist of global repute, Leandro Erlich is perhaps best known in Japan as the creator of The Swimming Pool, a permanent installation at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

From massive installations to videos, Erlich's works employ optical illusions and sound effects to shake up our notions of common sense. Though what the audience sees may at first glance seem familiar, on closer inspection it proves to be a surprising, unsettling deviation from the usual, in the form of, for example, a boat floating in the absence of water, or people sticking to the wall in various poses. Viewers begin to doubt whether what they see is actually reality, and notice just how much unconscious habit influences the way they look at things.

Covering the entire 24 years of Erlich's career to date, "Leandro Erlich: Seeing and Believing" will be the largest-ever exhibition devoted to the work of this fascinating artist. Of the approximately 40 works on display produced from 1995 to 2017, 80 percent will be making their Japanese debut. Through Erlich's works, we will realize by ridding of our inertia, habit, preconceived notions, and received wisdom that the visible is not all there is to reality, and experience for ourselves, with our newly unclouded vision, the advent of a new kind of world.
 

Tags: Leandro Erlich