21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

Artwork Data

About the Artwork

In one of the museum’s courtyards is a swimming pool framed by a limestone deck. When viewed from the deck, the pool appears to be filled with deep, shimmering water. In fact, however, a layer of water only some 10cm deep is suspended over transparent glass. Below the glass is an empty space with aquamarine walls that viewers can enter. The work sets up an unfolding sequence of experiences, from our astonishment at peering down and finding people under the water to our gazing upward from the interior of the pool. While undermining our everyday assumptions about what we think to be obvious, the work invites our active involvement in its spaces—once we catch on to its deception—and produces a sense of connection between people looking at each other.

About the Artist

Leandro ERLICH

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1973. Lives there. Through artworks that undermine the human senses, Leandro Erlich explores the ways we understand phenomena, enter into relationships with spaces, and grasp reality. Erlich’s works investigate perception and cognition not with the rigor of scientific experimentation but with rich humor and wit, in a dimension of trompe-l’oeil. The works relax relationships among viewers experiencing them together and produce a place they can share.