His exhibition at Mori Art Museum saw a record-breaking visitor number that exceeds 600,000.

His work stirred a frenzy at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field.

He claims to be an artist working in between reality and imagination.

He centers his work around reality, symbols and underlying meanings.

He is full of imagination, good at subverting the normality and rethinking his expressional techniques,

and favors the action of breaking reality by constructing and deconstructing scenarios.

He is Argentine artist Leandro Erlich.

From July 11 to August 25 at CAFA Art Museum, the largest Leandro Erlich solo exhibition to date will take place. Spanning 25 years of Erlich’s artist life, showcasing 20 large-scale interactive installations, the exhibition brings an all-round participatory art experience for the audience.

Erlich created a new version of Building for this exhibition. It is inspired by the classic shop signs and outer firewalls in Chinatown. The entity that is originally far away from China is now placed in the Chinese capital city. The approach embodies the eternal distance between representation and essence, and how we easily accept a traveler’s impression of a city or a culture.

Leandro Erlich, Swimming Tool
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2014)
Steel frame, wood, tempered glass, swimming pool ladder
? Keizo Kioku, courtesy 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true; Real becomes unreal when the unreal is real. (假作真時真亦假，無為有處有還無。) In the state of void, oneness and tranquility (虛壹而靜), our senses resonate and transcend reality, and arrive at the “Confines of the Great Void”.

These works are a narrative unfolded in the public realm. By stories visually constructed from daily life, the artist awakens re-examination of daily scenes. They come from reality, share experience, develop a new style that breaks people’s stereotypes.

Leandro Erlich, Building (2004)
Exhibited at Le 104, Paris (2011)
Inkjet, light, iron, wood and mirror
6 x 8 x 12 m
? Leandro Erlich Studio

Erlich likes to apply all kinds of media and expressive approaches, to create works that challenge the conceptual limits of the audience. His works include installation, ready-made object, sculpture, video and even painting. The situation created by Erlich can trigger the audience’s visual thinking, which further evokes a new way to process the world, which intertwines their on-site feelings and directs to a new reality.

Leandro Erlich, Pulled by the Roots (2015)
On-site installation exhibited at ZKM, Germany (2015)
? ONUK, courtesy ZKM

About the exhibition

Dates: Jul 11 - Aug 25, 2019 (Not closed on Monday during the exhibition)

Opening Hours (Day):  9:30 - 17:30

Opening Hours (Night): 18:30 - 21:00 (Closed on Monday)

Last admission time (Night): 20:30

Courtesy of the artist and CAFA Art Museum, for further information please visit www.cafamuseum.org.