In Milan, the first monographic exhibition in Europe by Argentine Leandro Erlich

The Palazzo Reale in Milan will host for the first time in Europe from April 22 to October 4, 2023 anextensive monographic exhibition of Leandro Erlich, among the leading figures of the international art scene. Promoted by the City of Milan-Cultura, the exhibition is produced and organized by Palazzo Reale and Arthemisia, in collaboration with Studio Erlich, and is curated by Francesco Stocchi.

An Argentine artist, born in Buenos Aires in 1973, Leandro Erlich creates large installations with which the public relates and interacts, becoming the work of art itself. Buildings into which one virtually climbs, houses uprooted and suspended in the air, elevators that lead nowhere, escalators tangled like threads in a ball of yarn, disorienting and surreal sculptures, videos that subvert normality. These are all elements that tell of something ordinary in an extra-ordinary context, where everything is different from what it seems, where we lose our sense of reality and perception of space.

Erlich’s works are the result of a profound and conceptual artistic research, which flows into paradox and has already won millions of visitors worldwide: 600,000 in Tokyo and 300,000 in Buenos Aires. Everywhere audiences have flocked to his exhibitions, which are characterized by site-specific installations that are very complex to make and therefore very rare.

The exhibition at the Royal Palace will therefore give the public an opportunity to learn about Erlich’s work through his best-known and most iconic works, for the first time brought together in one location with the intention of systematizing the artist’s output. Erlich takes the visitor to a magical elsewhere, where the possible becomes impossible. His work explores the perceptual bases of reality and our ability to interrogate these same bases through a visual framework. The architecture of the everyday is a recurring theme in Erlich’s art, which aims to create a dialogue between what we believe and what we see, just as it seeks to bridge the gap between museum space and everyday experience.

This is how the artist himself describes himself, “I like to present myself as a conceptual artist working in the realm of reality and perception. My subject is reality, symbols and the potential for meaning. I strive to create a body of work-especially in the public sphere-that is open to the imagination, subverts normality, rethinks representation, and proposes actions that construct and deconstruct situations to disrupt reality. Speaking generally.”

Each of Erlich’s works is to be read as a window to the world that is sensitive to the gaze, which instead of misleading reveals the landscape that each person holds within his or her self. As a first reaction, an Erlich work elicits a sense of familiarity with respect to the everyday, and then goes so far as to insinuate a certain doubt. By carefully observing the work, the viewer’s gaze begins to doubt what he perceives by being confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon. Stirring up questions, doubts, and emotions in the audience that interact with his work is Erlich’s primary thought, and it is the participation of the viewer that makes the work complete.

The exhibition is sponsored by Generali Valore Cultura, mobility partner Frecciarossa Treno Ufficiale and media partner Urban Vision. The catalog is published by Toluca Studio.

Biography

A world-renowned contemporary Argentine artist, Leandro Erlich creates works that use optical illusions and sound effects to shake our notions of common sense. Although what the audience sees may seem familiar at first glance, from large installations to videos, closer examination reveals a surprising and disturbing deviation from the usual, in the form, for example, of a boat floating in the absence of water or people attached to the wall in various poses.

Born in Argentina in 1973. Lives and works between Paris, Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

His exhibitions have in recent times broken all records for admissions, regardless of geography or type of institution: from MORI Art Museum (Tokyo, 2017), which attracted more than 600,000 visitors, to HOW Art Museum (Shanghai, 2018), to Liminal, the major anthological exhibition at MALBA (Buenos Aires) seen by more than 300.000 people; at The Confines of The Great Void at CAFAM (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing), China’s leading museum, Erlich became the first non-Chinese artist to occupy the entire exhibition space until the retrospective currently touring Brazil (CCBB Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo). In December 2022, a new version of Liminal, the first anthological exhibition in the United States, opened at PAMM in Miami, where it will be on display until September 2023.

Erlich began his professional career at the age of eighteen with a solo exhibition at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires and, after receiving several grants (El Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Fundación Antorchas), continued his studies at the Core Program, an artist residency in Houston (Glassell School of Art, 1998) where he developed the celebrated works Swimming Pool and Living Room. In 2000 he participated in the Whitney Biennial with Rain, and in 2001 he represented Argentina at the 49th Venice Biennale with Swimming Pool, an iconic work that is part of the permanent collection of the 21st Century Museum of Art in Kanazawa (Japan) and the Voorlinden Museum (Netherlands).
Erlich has won numerous international critical awards, including The Roy Neuberger Exhibition Award (NY, 2017), Nomination for the Prix Marcel Duchamp (Paris, 2006), UNESCO Prize (Istanbul, 2001), Leonardo Prize (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, 2000), Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Buenos Aires, 1992).

His works can be found 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’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 21st Century Museum of Art Kanazawa, Japan; MACRO, Rome; The Jerusalem Museum; FNAC, France; Ville de Paris et SCNF, France; Voorlinden Museum, Netherlands; MUSAC, Spain.

Image: Leandro Erlich, Classroom (2017). Two identically sized rooms, wood, windows, desks, chairs, door, speccgio, lights, blackboard, school accessories and other classroom decorations, and black boxes. Varying sizes. Kioku Keizo, Morti Art Museum

In Milan, the first monographic exhibition in Europe by Argentine Leandro Erlich

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