Mischa Leinkauf

Exploring invisible borders
Walk, hide, play

We see the figure of Mischa Leinkauf from behind––as he walks slowly with his gaze forward, the sand on the ocean floor disperses. Here, the artist is trying to capture the invisible “border.” This is a space between Israel and Jordan or Egypt, or that between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta by the Strait of Gibraltar. This work, Fiction of a Non-Entry, is also a documentary about the artist himself trying to cross the border, not by the overland routes which would be arduous to traverse, but at the bottom of the ocean beyond the reach of humans.

Another work which will be on exhibit is Endogenous Error Terms. Starting in Tokyo immediately after the Tohoku earthquake, Reinkauf has moved to Russia, Mongolia, Athens, and Vienna, among other places––delving into the massive infrastructure, such as underground waterways, sewers and shelters which uphold the security of each city. This work observes the outside world from the darkness of these structures.

In the context of contemporary art, perhaps Leinkauf’s most well-known work is the film, Symbolic Threats, in which he and Matthias Wermke swapped out the stars and stripes on the Brooklyn Bridge for hand stitched stars and stripes in white. This exhibition offers a glimpse of Leinkauf’s new explorations, where he plays with the distortions of large control systems and the tangible spaces between cities and nations.