Leandro Erlich, photo courtesy Guyot
Leandro Erlich was born in Argentina in 1973. He lives and works in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Over the past two decades, his work has been shown internationally and featured in the permanent collections of major museums and private collectors. He enjoys particular renown in Asia, and his most recent exhibitions at the MORI Art Museum (Tokyo, 2017) and the HOW Art Museum (Shanghai, 2018) have attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. On June 26th, his new show Próximamente opens at the Ruth Benzacar Gallery in Buenos Aires, followed by LIMINAL, a major anthological exhibition at MALBA (Buenos Aires) on July 4th (2019). On July 10th, 2019, he will become the first non-Chinese artist to occupy the entire exhibition space at the CAFAM (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing), China’s premiere museum, with the show The Confines of The Great Void.
Erlich began his professional career at 18 with a solo exhibition at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires and, after receiving several fellowships (El Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Fundación Antorchas), went on to study at the Core Program, an artist residency in Houston, Texas (Glassell School of Art, 1998); there, he developed his signature installations Swimming Pool and Living Room. In the year 2000, he participated in the Whitney Biennale with the work Rain, and in 2001 he became Argentina’s representative at the 49th Venice Biennale with Swimming Pool, a landmark piece that is part of the permanent collection at The 21st Century Museum of Art of Kanazawa (Japan) and the Voorlinden Museum (Netherlands).
Leandro Erlich, Rain (1999), Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitney Biennale (2000)
Steel frame, wood wall board, sliding glass window and casing, faux brick interior, water circulation system, sound and strobe light installation
Dimensions variable
© Martin Sichetti, courtesy Leandro Erlich Studio
His public works include La Democracia del Símbolo, a joint intervention in the Obelisco monument and MALBA Museum that captivated the city of Buenos Aires in 2015; Maison Fond marked the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris and is on permanent display at the Gare du Nord (Nuit Blanche, 2015);thecelebrated installation Bâtiment (Nuit Blanche, Paris, 2004) has been reproduced in countries across the globe (France, The UK, Australia, Japan, Argentina, Ukraine, Austria); in 2018, Ball Game was commissioned by the IOC to commemorate the Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. Port of Reflections has been exhibited at the MMCA (Seoul, Korea, 2014), at MUNTREF (Buenos Aires, 2016) and at the Neuberger Museum of Art (New York, 2017). Palimpsest is on permanent display at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (Kinare, Japan, 2018).
Leandro Erlich, Lost Garden (2009), Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California (2010)
Metal frame, brick, window, mirror, light and artificial plants
Dimensions variable
© Jon Endow, courtesy Leandro Erlich Studio
Leandro Erlich, Lost Garden (2009), Galería Nogueras-Blanchard, Madrid (2013)
Metal frame, brick, window, mirror, light and artificial plants
Dimensions variable
Courtesy Galería Nogueras-Blanchard
Erlich has received numerous awards, including: The Roy Neuberger Exhibition Award (NY, 2017), the Nomination for the Prix Marcel Duchamp (Paris, 2006), the UNESCO Award (Istanbul, 2001), El Premio Leonardo (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, 2000),el Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Buenos Aires, 1992).
As a conceptual artist, his work explores the perceptual bases of reality and our capacity to interrogate these same foundations through a visual framework. The architecture of the everyday is a recurring theme in Erlich’s art, aimed at creating a dialogue between what we believe and what we see, just as he seeks to close the distance between the museum or gallery space and daily experience.
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His work has been shown in numerous individual exhibits which include: El Museo del Barrio, New York (2001); MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2006); Centre D’art Saint Nazaire, France (2005); PS1 MoMA, NY (2008); Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy (2008); Galería Luciana Brito, Sao Paulo (2009); MOLAA, Long Beach (2010); Sean Kelly Gallery, NY (2011); Galería Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires (2007, 2012, 2019); Galería NoguerasBlanchard (2013); Barbican Center, London (2013); 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2014); MMCA, Seoul, Korea (2014); MALBA, Buenos Aires (2015); ZKM, Germany (2015); Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, Spain (2017); Neuberger Museum of Art, New York (2017); MORI Art Museum, Tokyo(2017/2018); HOW Art Museum, Shanghai(2018); MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019); CAFAM, Beijing, China (2019).
Group showsinclude: la Nuit Blanche de Paris (2004); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); MuseoNacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, España (2008); Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires (2009, 2013); Galleria Continua in Les Moulins (2011); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011); Centquatre, Paris (2011); MOT, Tokyo (2013); Shanghai Art Festival (2013); Spiral Garden, Tokyo (2017); Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris (2018); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018), etc.
He has participated extensively in biennales, among others: the 1st Bienal Mercosur (1997); the 7th Havana Biennale (2000); the 7th Istanbul Biennale (2001); the 3rd Shanghai Biennale (2002); the 1st Busan Biennale, Korea (2002); the 26th Sao Paulo Biennial (2004); the Venice Biennale (2001/2005); the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan (2006/2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); Liverpool Biennial (2008); Singapore Biennial (2008); 2ndBienal de Montevideo, Uruguay (2014); XIII Bienal de Cuenca (2016); Bienal Sur, Buenos Aires (2017).
His work is featured in many private and public collections, including: The Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tate Modern, London; Musée National d’ArtModerne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 21st Century Museum of Art Kanazawa, Japan; MACRO, Rome; The Jerusalem Museum; FNAC, France; Ville de Paris et SCNF, Gare du Nord, France; etc.
