Kreëmart, the provocateur of experimental consumption, Luciana Brito Galeria, and Pérez Art Museum Miami present “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too,” a large-scale, edible sculptural installation and performance by Leandro Erlich during Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. The performance took place at Luciana Brito Galeria’s Booth D24 at Art Basel Miami Beach on Tuesday, November 29, at 6:00 pm, and at PAMM on Wednesday, November 30, at 2:30 pm. The project is a revival of Leandro Erlich’s first collaboration with Kreëmart for the American Patrons of the Tate at the Haunch of Venison in 2009, which was featured in his upcoming catalogue “Liminal.” This latest iteration celebrates Erlich’s first survey exhibition in North America, Leandro Erlich: Liminal, on view at PAMM from November 29, 2022 to September 4, 2023. The two artworks are available as an edition of 3 + 1 AP.
On display during “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too” were one-to-one replicas of an ottoman and a daybed, from the famed Barcelona design collection circa 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, made entirely of cake. The cakes are created to look identical to the real Barcelona furniture pieces. The Barcelona daybed and ottoman replicas, serve as the centerpiece for a 15 minute performance, where an actor portraying a psychiatrist is haunted and teased by the presence of his fantasy woman in his psychiatry office.
At the climax of the performance, the cakes are cut into and shared with audience members, revealing the true nature of the unassuming item. With these art objects, Erlich plays with the viewer’s sense of perception and introduces doubt about our own sensorial input.
Erlich’s work explores the artifices of visuality, through sensory and perceptual games. Everyday architecture is a recurrent theme in his work, with which he creates paradoxes between what we believe and what we see, with situations of mystery and questioning. This transgression of limits destabilizes not only our absolute beliefs, but also the limits of art and the legitimizing institutions. Through installations, sculptures, photographs, and videos, the artist simulates situations that dislocate our everyday experience and our understanding of the common.
Chocolate Couch (2009) “You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It Too.” Chocolate Couch-“You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too” was exhibited as part of the Kreëmart Festival founded by Raphael Castoriano. As part of the same event, Marina Abramovic, Mickalene Thomas, Rob Wynne, Teresita Fernandez, Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh and Vik Muniz participated in performance pieces. True to his architectural and design roots, Erlich confectioned Mies van der Rohe’s famous Barcelona daybed–often associated with the pyschoanalyst’s couch. The gallerist Sean Kelly observed (as resident anaylst) while spectators ate the chocolate couch.”