According to Artkrush...A master of illusion, Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich has amazed audiences with whimsical installations, sculptures, photographs, and videos for the past decade. His video installation Le Trottoir (The Sidewalk) is one of the highlights of the Chanel Mobile Art exhibition, and his celebrated Swimming Pool installation is currently enchanting visitors at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City. Artkrush editor Paul Laster recently sat down with the globetrotting artist at New York's Gramercy Park Hotel to discuss his past work and his new installation at Prospect.1 New Orleans.
AK: The first work I saw of yours was Rain, an installation in the 2000 Whitney Biennial that presented the viewer with the illusion of seeing someone through an apartment window on a rainy day. It was very clever and eerie. How did you come up with that idea and how was the illusion constructed?
LE: Like most of my projects, the idea came from the consideration of everyday architecture. I'm interested in the background places that hold our experiences and emotions on a daily basis, even though we are unaware of them. For Rain, I looked for a particular mood: a nostalgic scene, where the viewer participated in the act of contemplation. The windows looked out on a narrow space between two extremely close urban buildings. I built an enclosed set and used pumps to recycle the rain. In the end, as often happens, Rain took on a life of its own and became less about nostalgia and more about a violent storm.
AK: The following year, I stumbled upon a group show at Kent Gallery in New York that included Turismo. For this series, you created a wintry alpine set during the 7th Havana Biennial and photographed Cubans playing on the fictional slope. Why snow in Cuba, and how did the public react?
LE: Around that time, I was invited to several international biennials and realized that the best way to approach this type of exhibition was to play with context. I decided to engage the social, political, and geographical context of Havana, rather than deny it. I collaborated with Judi Werthein, a fellow Argentinean artist, to build a fake landscape that would never exist in the Caribbean. By photographing Cubans in a snowy environment, we were able to metaphorically transport them to a place that most had never visited. Few Cubans are allowed to leave the country, so the participants found the project somewhat ironic. They would leave the set with a Polaroid and jokingly say, "Look, I've been skiing in Switzerland."
AK: The art world enthusiastically embraced one of your earlier installations, Swimming Pool, from 1999. One version is on permanent display at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, and another is currently on view at P.S.1. What is it about this piece that captures the imagination of the viewer?
LE: I think it's the simplicity — the fact that something extraordinary can happen in such a simple way, technically and conceptually. That's an important factor in all of my projects. The viewer can trace the process; it's recognizable. The trick is not presented to deceive the viewer, but to be understood and resolved by him. Such an engagement with the work involves the viewer's participation and leads to the thought that reality is as fake and constructed as the art; it's a fiction. Although it's the fiction that we all agree to live in. I'm a very optimistic person, and understanding that reality can be many things at the same time increases our awareness of life, politics, and our surroundings in general.
AK: 2005's Staircase installation, which you created for Albion in London, is very amusing. You almost get vertigo by looking at the photo documentation. How difficult was it to construct the piece in the gallery and what was the optimum point for experiencing it?
LE: It was a difficult piece to build. It was partially produced in Buenos Aires, shipped to London by boat in two containers, and then installed and finished in the gallery space. It really did give you some sort of vertigo — just by looking in front of you rather than looking down. My work has a cinematographic sensibility. It's a stage, where the viewer becomes an actor. Staircase riffs on an iconoclastic scene from Hitchcock: looking down the staircase. The viewer not only interacts with the work; he interacts with the other viewers. Like in Rain, the person across the way could be a neighbor, but it's more likely just another member of the public. The person on the staircase could be two or three floors up or down. There's a relation between all of the work and a path for viewing it, although each piece is proposing something slightly different — be it something physical, perceptual, or contemplative.
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