Leandro Erlich: Swimming Pool @ P.S. 1 (Michelle)

P.S.1

Leandro Erlich: Swimming Pool, (2008)

“Erlich is known for installations that seem to defy the basic laws of physics, and befuddle the viewer with jarring environments that momentarily threaten a sense of balance or space” (P.S.1 Newspaper, Fall/Winter 2008).
Leandro Erlich’s Swimming Pool installation at P.S.1 transforms the Contemporary Art Center’s gallery space into a unique swimming hole… but don’t expect to get your feet wet! Tempting, as it may be to dip an extremity into the Swimming Pool, viewers won’t get anything as much as an inch in if they tried. Erlich’s pool is set into the gallery floor about twelve feet deep, but has an impenetrable glass surface overlaid with streams of water that mimic the rippling from a pool filtration system. The Swimming Pool is in fact not a real pool at all, but an uncanny reproduction. Viewers are confronted with this reality when they observe other gallery visitors at the bottom of the pool. Indirectly all viewers become active participants in Erlich’s work; disorienting each other’s perceptions and ideas of space and environment.
I was immediately drawn to Erlich’s piece when I saw the stained woodwork of a sauna-like structure and the reflection of blue from the pool’s lights. His ability to manipulate a space where viewers become apart of his work mesmerized me. Walking within the pool I had the inquisitiveness of a child, looking above, below and around me taking in the whole space. My overall reaction or sensation was of wonderment. I admired Erlich’s ability to transform a familiar environment into one that questioned reality and flirted with the concept of simulacra. Most importantly, I found that Erlich’s belief that “illusions transform the ordinary into the extraordinary” was a key component to why his work was intriguing. Erlich goes on to say, “They [illusions] act as a trigger for the viewer’s interaction. They are placed in the work not to deceive but to engage, to be discovered, and to be revealed. It is important to restore our capacity for surprise and to keep always in life a certain level of awareness. Reality itself is not made of one truth” (P.S.1 Newsletter p. 3). His other works such as Bâtiment or The Staircase also create experiences in which viewers are able to navigate throughout various spaces that appear to be familiar but contain warped plays on perspective and physics. The Staircase for example places the viewer looking straight ahead at a stairwell that seems to be spiraling downward. This manipulation of space and perspective achieves the same sense of feeling The Swimming Pool creates- by positioning the viewer in a seemingly surreal and unrealistic situation/environment. Bâtiment utilizes mirrors and fantastic viewer participation to create impossible situations upon building facades. This work also possesses the same awareness of space and provocation of contemplation. Erlich’s Swimming Pool showed me how tangible one can make his or her ideas. Art can assume many forms and be successfully carried out- Leandro Erlich’s Swimming Pool demonstrates this.