Artists

Leandro Erlich

Press release

On the occasion of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Associazione Arte Continua presents Hybrids. Leandro Erlich at the Negozio Olivetti, curated by Marcello Dantas. The exhibition project is hosted in the historic Negozio Olivetti in St. Mark's Square, a space designed by Carlo Scarpa and considered one of the most important examples of 20th-century Venetian commercial architecture. About twenty sculptures by Leandro Erlich, including some previously unseen, will be exhibited. The project investigates hybrid forms between nature, architecture and the body. The project presents a series of hybrid organisms that combine elements belonging to different worlds: butterflies with wings that take the shape of ears, cabbages transformed into architecture, corals that recall urban morphologies, or trees that end in human feet. Key works include: Pulled by the Roots (2015), which introduces the theme of uprooting, understood in both a physical and conceptual sense; Pixel Tree (2026), a bronze sculpture that fragments the figure of a tree into pixel-like units, evoking the intersection of nature and digital language; Carte (2026), made of steel, resin, and light, which introduces a cartographic and luminous dimension suggesting an unstable and transformable geography; Above All (2020), a large textile work in wool that extends the artist's research to the dimension of surface and texture; Papillon (2021), a bronze butterfly with ear-shaped wings examining communication as a biological phenomenon; and Caracol – The Pace of Evolution (2021), a Carrara marble brain morphing into a snail. A text by Emanuele Coccia, included in the project, emphasizes how art can intervene in the essence of things through the combination of different identities, allowing forms to inhabit one within the other. The initiative is part of the Arte all'Arte program, promoted by Associazione Arte Continua, with the aim of developing connections between contemporary art, architecture and landscape.