Born 1966, Waregem (Belgium) / Works in France/Belgium

Belgian artist Erich Weiss lives and works in France and Belgium. He works in a broad range of media including photography, video, installation, sound, performance, drawing and collage. Very often his works refer to literature, art history or to a precise local context. He has created site-specific projects for museums and art institutions in Asia (China, Japan, Thailand), Africa (Angola), America (New York, Los Angeles) and Europe. Erich Weiss is a participant in both the 2008 More to Love and 2009 From the Outside Looking In projects.

1
Please Don’t Leave Me (for Bas-Jan Ader), 2008
Graffiti
Size: dimensions variable

The Work: A tribute to Bas Jan Ader’s original work, Weiss uses a Thai translation and re-contextualizes the text’s significance in the context of More to Love. A bittersweet sense of sympathy emerges alongside the Thai implication of how one may speak about an unpleasant relationship in a romantic way.

2
SOS (for F.G. Torres), 2008
Light bulbs, wire, light controlling machine
Size: dimensions variable

The Work: A tribute to “Felix Gonzalez Torres” ‘s original work. Torres is an iconic artist who died of Aids. Weiss reinvents the original artwork as a flashing hymn that employs the visual code of SOS.

3
Erich Weiss
Love Will Tear Us Apart (for I. Curtis), 2008
Floor text
Size: dimensions variable

The Work: Borrowing the title of British rock group Joy Division’s timeless masterpiece, the words are rendered in a glittering Thai and English text on the floor.  Inviting the audience to walk across the words, Weiss wants the words to dissipate as the glitter is subsequently carried away by the audience’s movement.