Leandro Erlich in His Pool, 2000. Photo by Will Michels

In this public talk, Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich (born 1973) discusses his grandest works of the last 15 years and the motivations behind his artistic methods.

In 1999, while he was a Core Program fellow in Houston, Erlich debuted his Swimming Pool, a work that remains one of his most well-known pieces, showing versions at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001 and at PS1 New York in 2008. Erlich has attracted immense attention for his large-scale and cinematic installations that warp the architectural spaces of everyday life and force viewers to encounter the uncanny and unstable boundaries they often take for granted.

Since his fellowship in Houston, Erlich has participated in shows internationally, including the Nuit Blanche de Paris in 2004, the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in 2006, and the KZM in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2015. His most recent and controversial project, La democracia del símbolo (The Democracy of the Symbol), presents an intervention in which the pyramidal top of the Obelisk of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s most prestigious and iconic national monument, appears cut off and placed at the doorstep of the MALBA museum.