Artworks of Leandro Erlich #5 Hair Salon & Building
2018.3.13 [Tue]
While the installation appears to be a recreation of a hair salon with neatly arranged mirrors and chairs, some mirrors do not show reflections as they normally should.
Instead, in the mirror we see not ourselves but people who are not even here in the room, gazing back at us or walking around. In fact, on the other side of what we think is the mirror is an entirely different space.
Erlich is drawing on our expectation that the mirror will show our own face looking at it, while in fact the “mirror” is just a frame separating another empty space in the style that the artist frequently employs. A further example of this trend is Double Tea that he exhibited at Setouchi Triennale 2010.
Hair Salon
2008/2017
Wood, mirror, chair, aluminium sash, light
980 x 684 x 280 cm
Installation view: “Leandro Erlich: Seeing and Believing,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2017
Photo: Mikuriya Shinichiro
This large, interactive installation allows visitors to enjoy the experience of defying gravity to hang from or stand on the facade of a building. A large mirror is placed at 45-degree angles in front of the facade laid out on the floor. Visitors can strike the poses they like while watching themselves in the mirror. This artwork utilizes our preconceived idea of building facades as something that must be erected perpendicularly from the ground. The viewers who interact with the artwork also then become part of it when other viewers in turn watch them, making it a performative and participatory work.
Building
2004/2017
Inkjet print sheet, aluminium truss frame, wood, light, mirror sheet
600 x 900 x 550 cm
Installation view: “Leandro Erlich: Seeing and Believing,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2017
Photo: Hasegawa Kenta
Courtesy: Galleria Continua
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