By: Robert Lovi By: Robert Lovi | September 30, 2022 | Culture, People, Style & Beauty, Art,
The Room, 2006-18. PHOTO: COURTESY OF Mori Art Museum
The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is presenting "Leandro Erlich: Liminal," an immersive exhibition of renowned works by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich, opening on Nov. 29. The exhibition, chosen and curated by New York-based guest curator Dan Cameron, is the artist's first monographic survey show in North America and includes 16 works spanning more than two decades of Erlich's works.
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The exhibition showcases a series of everyday spaces: an elevator, subway, classroom, hair salon, sidewalk, swimming pool, laundry room, and even a window through which spectators can see the neighbors' windows. Each environment replicates these everyday scenarios, yet Erlich's touch creates extraordinary experiences. A window is made of air, there is no reflection, and bodies move across time and space.
Lost Garden, 2009. PHOTO: COURTESY OF MALBA
"I believe in art as a practice that sparks dialogue—a dynamic and ongoing conversation with the audience and the greater context. I have never created a project or work without placing the audience's participation at the center of the experience or without considering the surrounding environment. Architecture is often a key element in my work, and I incorporate local architectural language and cultural constructs that enliven my practice. I have been a nomadic artist for more than two decades, exploring territory far beyond my native Buenos Aires and journeying far outside of my comfort zone. However, as I approach fifty, I consider myself deeply Argentine. This cornerstone of my identity lends particular significance to my first mid-career survey at PAMM, a museum steeped in Latin American culture and heritage. Miami is a cultural nexus between North and South America, between hemispheres and languages. It's a privilege to show my work in a context that is embedded in my own life," said Leandro Erlich.
The View, 1997. PHOTO: COURTESY OF Mori Art Museum
Liminal has been designed to present an underlying narrative, guiding viewers through a sequence of experiences that function cumulatively to cast doubt on the process of perception and broaden its possibilities. It is displayed throughout PAMM's special exhibition galleries. A Swimming Pool, for example, allows viewers to look down and observe individuals "underwater" (through a layer of water encased in transparent glass), while those below exist in the form of suspended reality, decorated by the play of light and water on the aquamarine walls. Erlich's famed glass sculptures of fleeting beauty, The Cloud, and the labyrinthine mystery of Changing Rooms are among his other works. Erlich's typically participatory work gives viewers active participation in installations such as Hair Salon and Classroom.
The View, 1997. PHOTO: COURTESY OF LeandroErlich Studio
Erlich has created a highly distinctive body of sculptures and site-specific installations since the late 1990s, in which the architectural appearance of the everyday functions as a perceptual trap, leads the viewer into a visual paradox that systematically defies certain laws and attributes of the material world. Stairs lead nowhere, elevators never arrive, passive observers become active participants, clouds acquire ceremonial solidity, and the integrity of created spaces reveals their bottomless essence in Erlich's parallel universe.
Swimming Pool, 1999. PHOTO: COURTESY OF © Noriko Inomoto
"I was fortunate to get to know Leandro Erlich's work in the early 1990s in Argentina, and ever since I've been consistently amazed by his genius at transforming vernacular architectural spaces into bewildering visual paradoxes. Because of the special challenges his sculptures present in terms of their design and construction, most people have only been able to experience one piece by Leandro Erlich at a time. Ever since I had the unique opportunity, in 2008, to commission Ladder and Window, a new outdoor work, for Prospect.1 in New Orleans, I've been obsessed with organizing a survey exhibition of his work for a US museum. It's a huge commitment on PAMM's part to take on a project of this scale and complexity, but not really a risk, in light of the first version of Liminal's extremely successful run three years ago at MALBA in Buenos Aires. For me, Miami is the ideal city to initiate the in-depth appreciation of his work that his artistic achievement truly warrants." said guest curator Dan Cameron.
Hair Salon, 2006-2017. PHOTO: COURTESY OF Mori Art Museum
The title of the exhibition relates to the uncertain threshold between realms or experiences, a state replete with the possibility of crossing over or entering a new realm, which spectators frequently encounter in Erlich's work. Hovering at the liminal edge places us between one reality (that we have left behind) and a new world that is just beyond our reach. Erlich's study calls into question our belief that we understand where we are in the physical world and how it behaves, creating a spell of enchantment over our waking life. The cumulative influence of Erlich's work instills viewers with a greater awareness of the inherent plurality of experience as well as a reverence for what we do not yet understand.
Six Cycles, 2018. PHOTO: COURTESY OF MALBA
"In the hands of Leandro Erlich, art and magic are often one in the same," said PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans. "Egyptian, Greek and Roman art of antiquity often illustrated magical spells and incantations for supernatural power. In the 20th Century with the advent of artists as shamans, the power of art has often been connected to the presence of magic. For Latin American writers in the mid-20th century, Magical Realism, not unlike Afrofuturism in the present, opened up worlds that seemingly did not exist in the history of Colonialism. Erlich is hyper aware of such histories and though he may find kinship, his art speaks to the here and now in important ways that highlight global humanism and coexistence. Seeing one of his works by yourself just doesn't have the same impact as viewing with others. For, rare is the work of art by Erlich that doesn't involve the physical presence of multiple viewers."
Photography by: Courtesy Mori Art Museum, MALBA, LeandroErlich Studio, © Noriko Inomoto,