Exhibition "The Tension" | Leandro Erlich

Cultural Centre Banco do Brasil in São Paulo

exposes "The tension" by Leandro Erlich

After a resounding success in the CCBBs of Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo is now hosting the show of the Argentinean artist, from 13/04;

Leandro Erlich is known worldwide for creations based on "commonplaces", but represented in a way that subverts their condition of "normality";

One of the artist's most emblematic works, "The Swimming Pool", will be installed on the ground floor of the CCBB São Paulo, a historic building in the city of São Paulo

 

São Paulo, March 2022 - It will look like the CCBB was renovated, but it is an exhibition. From April 13, a set of 16 works will transform the spaces of the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in São Paulo. A floating boat and lift, windows to imaginary gardens and even a swimming pool where the visitor can be submerged without fear of drowning are part of the show of one of the most provocative and popular names of contemporary art, the Argentine Leandro Erlich.

 

The exhibition that will arrive in São Paulo, after visiting CCBB BH and CCBB RJ, has a very explicit name, "The tension" (and sonorously ambiguous: those who do not read can hear "attention"), revealing one of the probable feelings that visitors will feel before the artist's installations. This is because Erlich works with references that are, literally, "common-places", spaces that we are used to seeing on a daily basis, but which are out of the condition of normality. As the curator Marcello Dantas states, "Leandro Erlich's work is structured on the mechanism of doubt. What our eyes see is at odds with what our mind knows", he summarizes.

 

Leandro Erlich, born in 1973 and producing his works in his studios in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, is constantly breaking down the boundaries we normally believe to exist between reality and illusion. In an interview with the Argentine newspaper Clarín, the artist explained his project: "I am mainly interested in transforming elements that people believe cannot be transformed, that cannot be different. It is a utopia of presenting the possibility of transforming what exists into something else, and this action invites us to imagine reality in a different way".

 

One of the most successful experiments in this sense - which has become one of his most popular and disconcerting works - is "Swimming Pool" (piscina, in Portuguese), which will be installed on the ground floor of the CCBB SP. An attraction wherever it is exhibited, Erlich's pool provokes absurd sensations both for those who enter it - without getting wet - and for those outside: a layer of water between one side and the other creates the illusion that the people at the bottom are actually immersed in a pool. Another disconcerting work and a major highlight among Erlich's installations that will be present at the São Paulo exhibition is "Classroom". In it, when the public enters the room, their image is reflected in glass, as if they were part of a different scene. Visitors look like ghosts, as if they were in an abandoned classroom - childhood memories are projected onto a scene of crisis and abandonment. In different works, Erlich resorts to the idea of visual cut-out suggested by the windows. One of these works is called, precisely, "Blind Window". "What does memory hold? Our brains or our eyes?" the artist asked rhetorically during an interview in Japan. "I like the idea of thinking that the eye, or the glass, are also capable of storing stories." This is precisely Erlich's proposal when fixing landscapes, imaginary and unusual situations, in architectural or decorative objects, such as a window or a false mirror in a lift. 

 

Erlich has participated in some major exhibitions in Brazil. In 1997, he was among the artists in the 1st Bienal do Mercosul and, in 2004, he was among the names in the 26th Bienal de São Paulo. In 2001, he represented Argentina at the 49th Venice Biennale, where he was again in 2005. There have been dozens of major group exhibitions in which Erlich has participated, as well as dozens of solo exhibitions around the world: New York, Barcelona, London, Seoul, Paris, Buenos Aires: wherever it is shown, the art of Leandro Erlich provokes the public. By displacing the spectator's previous knowledge of what we might call, now resorting to a commonplace of language, a "comfort zone", Erlich necessarily places the spectator in confrontation with what his experience of a given situation said, demanding "an engagement and a participative attention to unveil each work", explains the curator Marcello Dantas: "each situation only materialises with the presence of the public, in which the work opens a space of happening. The title of the exhibition already calls for this doubt: attention is required at the same time as it carries in itself the mystery caused by the tension that exists in the empty space before participation", he adds.

 

Erlich's optical illusions and subversion of reality make him both a conceptual and tremendously popular artist. The exhibition "Seeing and Believing" at the Mori Museum in Tokyo, which opened at the end of 2017, attracted 400,000 paying spectators in the first three months, surpassing the box office achieved by Japan's Takashi Murakami (315,000 tickets) and approaching the result obtained by Ai Weiwei (460,000) in the same period. At the time, the museum highlighted the interest that the Argentinian artist's work aroused among young people and teenagers, who represented around half of the visitors. In addition to provoking the gaze of these people in particular, Erlich's works invite interaction on social networks. Wherever he goes, Instagram is full of photos of people integrated into the exhibition space. When he exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (Malba) in 2015, he made a piece of a large obelisk of the Argentine capital "disappear" while a replica of the tip of the monument was displayed at the door of the museum.

 

Setting up a Leandro Erlich exhibition is no easy task. Working with large pieces and installations that require specific adaptations for exhibition spaces, and that break with the everyday logic of architecture and urbanism, some of the works require prior assembly, done in warehouses in Brazil itself, before being taken to the CCBB.

 

In this way, the tension provoked by the artist is the result not only of an acute perception of the visual possibilities of a given situation, but also of a concern with the very space that houses the exhibitions, which thus become unique. The perception of the swimming pool in São Paulo, for example, in a building of historical importance, will be quite different from that provoked by the installation at the Malba in Buenos Aires. Precisely because it dialogues with the surroundings and the visitors' previous experiences, Leandro Erlich's work expresses, like few others, our time. As Marcello Dantas explains, this is also a progressive sensation: "At each stage of this journey through the exhibition, we realise the relationship between expectation, tension and attention that translate the spirit of a time of uncertainty".

 

"The exhibition proposes a different look to what would be everyday life. This is related to our daily routine at BB DTVM, where we are always looking for opportunities to innovate and bring the best to our investors, contributing to a more sustainable society", says Isaac Marcovistz, executive manager of products, communication and marketing of BB DTVM, sponsor of the exhibition.

 

"Bringing a name of international weight as Erlich, reaffirms the commitment of the Bank of Brazil to democratize access to culture and contribute to the promotion, dissemination and encouragement of art," says Cláudio Mattos, general manager of CCBB SP.

 

VISITATION RULES:

 

 

• CCBB São Paulo is open every day, from 9am to 7pm (except Tuesdays)
• Public entry is only permitted on presentation of proof of vaccination against COVID-19
• Tickets can be booked via the Eventim app or website.

 

 

Service:

Tension" exhibition - Leandro Erlich

Venue: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

Period: April 13 to June 20

Tickets: Booking through the website bb.com.br/cultura and at the box office

Indicative rating: Free

Free entry

Address: Rua Álvares Penteado, 112 - Centro Histórico, Triângulo SP, São Paulo-SP

Access to the promenade by metro station São Bento

Operation: Open every day from 9am to 7pm, except Tuesdays

Information: (11) 4297-0600

Convened parking: Rua da Consolação, 228.

ValueR$ 14 for a period of up to 6 hours. It is necessary to validate the ticket at the CCBB box office.

Free transfer to CCBB. On the way back, the van will stop at República underground station.

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