Adam Leech: The Guide

Adam Leech’s (b. 1973, San Diego, CA) oeuvre is characterised by a fascination with the human mind. His work explores various forms of consciousness and how they produce experiences, emotions and relationships. During his residency, the artist attempted to contextualise these subjective processes in relation to the perception of artworks in the museum space. Through interviews with the staff of the museum, its board and visitors, and by corresponding with experts in the areas of psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and the occult, he established a polyphonous field through which to acquire knowledge about aesthetic experiences. The immeasurability of the latter also imparts meaning to the work.

The Guide comprises a series of paintings and a video installation. The exhibition articulates a set of experiences that reflect on the nature of time and consumption in the museum space. Inspired by scientific theses, empirical findings and myths, the works speculatively “guide” the viewer towards an increased awareness of his or her own condition. Deeply invested with the complex mind of the viewer, the exhibition ultimately evokes astonishment about the human psyche, physiology and perception. Besides the newly commissioned artworks, Leech also developed a series of instruments for decoding the museum experience. He created an unconventional visitor’s guide in the form of a sequence of YouTube tutorials and is currently finalising a psychological experiment in collaboration with the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Ghent University.

The S.M.A.K. residency programme offers artists the opportunity to develop artistic research within an institutional context. Residents are offered unfettered access to the museum’s organisational structure while enjoying experimental and intellectual freedom with regards to the final outcome. With this model the museum supports the diversity of research and artistic approaches in relation to institutional development.