On the occasion of Miami Art Week 2019, the City of Miami Beach commissioned Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich to create a site-specific artwork. Situated on the shore of Miami Beach’s beachfront at Lincoln Road, Leandro Erlich created a surreal installation, the 21st century traffic jam in sand.

Leandro Erlich: Order of Importance, curated by Ximena Caminos in collaboration with Brandi Reddick. Miami Beach, beachfront at Lincoln Road. Press Preview, December 3, 2019.

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Project info:

Miami Beach, FL, October 16, 2019 – On the occasion of Miami Art Week, the City of Miami Beach will premiere Order of Importance, a monumental new site-specific installation on Miami Beach by Argentinean conceptual artist Leandro Erlich curated by Ximena Caminos. Taking place from December 1–15, 2019, Erlich’s playful and surreal installation for Miami Beach will recast the 21st century traffic jam as 66 life-sized sculptures of cars and trucks queued at an imaginary stand still on the oceanfront at Lincoln Road.

Internationally renowned for combining elements of sculpture, architecture, and theater to disrupt the audience’s natural view of the world, Erlich’s colossal installation will be the largest work produced by the artist to date. Order of Importance will be situated on the shore of Miami Beach’s popular beachfront at Lincoln Road, a short walk from the City’s newly renovated Miami Beach Convention Center. Visitors will be invited to walk through this strikingly familiar scene of modernity over two weeks in December, coinciding with Miami Art Week. The site-specific work has been commissioned by the City of Miami Beach in collaboration with Miami-based curator Ximena Caminos, and Brandi Reddick, Cultural Affairs Manager at the City of Miami Beach.

Leandro Erlich said: “Climate change and its consequences are no longer a matter of perspective or opinion. The climate crisis has become an objective problem that requires immediate solutions. As an artist, I am in a constant struggle to make people aware of this reality, in particular, the idea that we cannot shrink away from our responsibilities to protect the planet.”

Ximena Caminos said: “Erlich has an uncanny ability to encourage us to take pause and reflect upon how we view the world around us. By defying our perceptions, his work makes us question reality. Apart from its surreal beauty and poetry, Order of Importance, like an image from a contemporary Pompeii, or a future relic, also alludes to our fragile position in the large universal canvas. It interacts with the climate crisis facing the world, particularly the rising sea level.

“My goal as a curator is to create acts of urban acupuncture that harness the force of art as a tool for change to promote the cross pollination of ideas and civic engagement through public programming and world-class activations.

“Today we’re relying on our cities to be at the forefront of social innovation and the City of Miami Beach, with its inclusive and innovative spirit, is playing a strong leadership role in instilling urgency in this conversation and the collaboration with their team has been extraordinary.”

Brandi Reddick
“Regarded as an international destination for arts and culture, Miami Beach is dedicated to commissioning works of public art that evoke a unique sense of place and thoughtfully engage our residents and visitors. Order of Importance adds to Miami Beach’s legacy as a vanguard for public art and complements the recently completed $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.”

About Leandro Erlich
Leandro Erlich was born in Argentina in 1973. He lives and works in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Over the past two decades, his work has been shown internationally and has been featured in permanent museum collections and private collections. He enjoys particular renown in Asia, with his most recent exhibitions at the MORI Art Museum (Tokyo, 2017) and the HOW Art Museum (Shanghai, 2018) attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. In 2019, the artist opened LIMINAL, a major anthological exhibition at MALBA (Buenos Aires) and 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 Ximena Caminos
Part of the Harvard GSD Think Tank, Ximena Caminos is one of the most unconventional creatives of her generation. Known for her post-disciplinary approach that bridges culture, community-building, urban development, and placemaking, she has recently been appointed Artistic Visionary Planner for The Underline, the largest public art project in the US. Caminos is the Founder of the cross-disciplinary cultural platform HoneyLab as well as the Founder and Chair of BlueLab Preservation Society, a non-profit dedicated to educate and inspire global environmental action. Caminos is also the former Artistic Director and Chair of Faena Art and Partner and CCO of the multi-award winning Faena Group. Caminos is a Member of the New Museum Leadership Council, a Founding Member of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Latin American Circle Partner, Board Member of Art Basel Cities and recipient of Knight Foundation Arts Champion Award.

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.

The City of Miami Beach has one of the most progressive public art programs in the country, allocating 2% of capital construction costs for the commissioning of site-specific works of public art.