City of Miami Beach to Unveil A Monumental Temporary Sand-based Installation by Argentinian Artist Leandro Erlich

(Miami Beach, FL) Oct 10, 2019 -

During Miami Art Week 2019, the City of Miami Beach will unveil Order of Importance, a monumental site-specific installation by Argentinean conceptual artist Leandro Erlich. The installation will be on view to the public from December 1–15, 2019.

Order of Importance will be a temporary installation located directly on the ocean front in South Beach at Lincoln Road, and will be comprised of 66 life-size sand replicas of cars and trucks. The forms will be left to slowly degrade throughout the duration of the 15-day exhibition.

By recasting the 21st century traffic jam in sand, Erlich alludes to time in both a representational and material sense. The sand replicas of vehicles frozen in time symbolize a harsh and rigid modernity that is at odds with natural and porous material of which they are made.

Throughout his career, Erlich has combined elements of sculpture, architecture, and theater to create surreal environments that disrupt the audience’s natural view of the world. He is internationally renowned for representing Argentina at the 49th Venice Biennale where he exhibited Swimming Pool (1999), a landmark piece that is now part of the permanent collection at the 21st Century Museum of Art of Kanazawa (Japan) and participated at the Whitney Biennial in 2000 with the work Rain (1999). Earlier this year Erlich became the first non-Chinese artist to occupy the entire exhibition space at the CAFAM (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing), China’s leading museum, with the show The Confines of The Great Void.

Order of Importance is the City’s first temporary public art commission and adds to Miami Beach’s legacy as a vanguard for public art. Miami Beach recently completed a $7 million public art investment at the Miami Beach Convention Center, which represents the largest single commission by a municipal percent-for-art program in the United States, including works by Franz Ackermann, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ellen Harvey, Joseph Kosuth, Joep van Lieshout and Sarah Morris.

###

About Leandro Erlich

Leandro Erlich (born in Argentina, 1973), lives and works in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Over the past two decades, his work has been shown internationally and featured in the permanent collections of major museums and private collectors. He enjoys particular renown in Asia, and his most recent exhibitions at the MORI Art Museum (Tokyo, 2017) and the HOW Art Museum (Shanghai, 2018) have attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. On July 4, 2019 he opened LIMINAL, a major anthological exhibition at MALBA (Buenos Aires) and one week later on July 10th, 2019, he became the first non-Chinese artist to occupy the entire exhibition space at the CAFAM (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing), China’s premiere museum, with the show The Confines of The Great Void.

About City of Miami Beach Tourism and Culture Department

The Miami Beach Tourism and Culture Department (TCD) supports, maintains and develops quality programs which enhance Miami Beach’s cultural institutions and infrastructure, as well as attracts and maintains exceptional cultural and tourist businesses and organizations, while striving to support and curate year-round programming that enriches the quality of life of our residents, and continues to place Miami Beach on the international cultural stage.