Leo Reichling
22 DECEMBER 2024
A contemporary artist from Geneva, Switzerland, now based in Clermont-Ferrand. Leo specializes in playing with objects and their meaning
A contemporary artist from Geneva, Switzerland, now based in Clermont-Ferrand. Leo specializes in playing with objects and their meaning
I don’t want to be confined to the idea of "being in a medium." I just want to live in art and meet people. But if you really want to know the answer to this question — I think I work with the bourgeois interior. I also play with objects and their meanings, taking objects from people or finding them.
What is your medium?
Ideas, emotions and themes in your work
I feel the need to create. I like to imagine that my work is like a mist. Sometimes, it’s driven by rage — destroying objects in an act of anger. For example, I did this with spoons: I find them beautiful, but then I discover some anger in my feelings and destroy them.
I was born near Geneva and studied philosophy in Toulouse’s university. After that I came to Clermont to apply in art school there, because it is more social and experimental. Apparently, I’ll be leaving Clermont-Ferrand soon.
Tell us about yourself
Don’t worry it’s only shallow/MBV, 2024.
What makes art successful?
To get a gallery director to choose you as an artist, you need to be talented, love your art, and be honest with it. But I am not an honest person. You don’t really need to be successful, you just need to live within your art community and stay true to your art. I like the idea that you can be an artist for artists.
I like to place my work in a space and see how it interacts. It’s a kind of addiction to see the final result. Ideas come spontaneously. I love finding inspiration in culture or life and bringing those ideas into my art. I just do my thing, and afterward, I see how it works.
The process and your favourite part of it
— You don’t really need to be successful, you just need to live within your art community and stay true to your art.
Box Life #1, 2024.
If your art were a music track, what would it be?
Ruff Trade by Maria Minerva.
The most interesting place for me is the Prefecture. I always look at that building and ask myself, "What are they doing, and who is in there?" But it’s very beautiful. And, of course, I love Les Ateliers.
What places in Clermont inspire you the most?
3. La veilleuse était terrible, et toi tu dormais, 2023.
2. Ce qu’il reste après... Wedding residue, 2023.
- My gloomy dream, I never woke up, 2023.
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