Sebastian Leon does not think in categories, nor does he fit into them. He is a multi-hyphenate creator whose practice takes media, materials and forms at their most familiar states and finds something fundamentally different in them. “Every creation functions as an act of revelation: an object that reveals itself through transformation,” his autobiography reads, and in his hands, resin can turn into skin or stone and glass can turn into fog, folds of fabric or lava. Likewise, the French-born, New York-based artist has transformed himself from a creative director into a designer and artist. He is variously described as a sculptor, musician, furniture designer and installation artist.
Leon first experimented with blown glass in 2019 when he was working on a lighting collection on display at Design Miami, and describes the medium as one of metamorphosis — sand that has been transformed by fire, then shaped with air into something solid. This arc, from one material state to another, is a useful description of his general approach to his work, which includes not only physical objects, but also sound works. He has collaborated on projects with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, released three solo recordings, built a permanent sound sculpture for the Orange County Museum of Art, and created immersive sound environments around the world.
(Later this month, he will debut a new acoustic work for NOMAD HAMPTONS – the first in an upcoming series of interconnected pieces. Titled Echoes of our dreamsIt combines sculpture, sound and technology to explore the boundaries between natural and artificial forms of communication.)
His work has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, the New Museum, the Palazzo della Triennale, and the UCCA in Beijing, and his commercial collaborations have extended to include Audi, Samsung, Audemars Piguet, and Krug, among others. Most recently, he completed an 18-month residency at Ralph Bucci Sculpture Studio in Manhattan, resulting in a new body of work, “Inca city“.
The series of otherworldly-inspired lighting and furnishings takes its name from the Angustus Labyrinth on Mars, a grid complex of geological ridges so geometrically precise that they appear like the ruins of a lost civilization in the images sent back to Earth by the Mariner 9 probe. Sadly, the similarity was an obvious coincidence, but for Leon, the potential misreading opened the door to what he calls speculative archaeology – the fabrication of relics from a civilization that never existed.
The works in “City of the Incas” are the product of the material philosophy that Leon worked to refine throughout his career and the experimentation that moved that career forward. During his stay, he built and polished the pieces on display in Ralph Bucci’s workshops, where he had access to master craftsmen and the tools needed to work with materials ranging from clay and resin to metal. The Observer caught up with Leon after the show opened to discuss what it means to excavate a civilization that never existed, why the job can be a kind of illusion and what sound has to do with sculpture.
Your work includes a wide range of materials and techniques. Is this multiplicity driven by the search for the right medium, or is movement between the materials themselves the goal?
More than anything else, I think it’s because every idea requires its own medium. Glass, steel, resin, sound, etc., each carry very specific behaviors and symbolic weight. What interests me is how far I can push those behaviors until the material begins to contradict itself: resin that looks like leather, mirrors that dissolve into transparency, and wool carpets that look like hairy terrain. My exploration between materials is actually a way of staying in the unstable zone of changing perception.
Your audio works are incredibly immersive. How does your engagement with sound relate to your work with physical materials?
Voice is probably the most direct way I think about presence. It is invisible, and yet it completely shapes the way we experience space. It suggests a memory, an emotion, a place, or even a form of physicality. Any sculpture for me is something that emanates: light, reflection, tension, or even a kind of silent aura. I approach light sculpture in the same way I approach sound sculpture. They all have a voice, something to say, a role to play.
“Inca City” at the Ralph Pucci International Gallery appears to be suspended between abstraction and something almost geological, like artifacts from a civilization that may have existed elsewhere. There is a strong sci-fi undertone. Was that intentional?
The “Inca City” is a real geological formation on Mars, resembling the ruins of a lost city. It became the starting point for the exhibition, which I developed as a kind of speculative archaeology, where I created artefacts from a civilization that had never existed. The sci-fi aspect is definitely there, but not in a futuristic sense; It’s more about completely displacing time and space. I’m interested in imagining a different material world, almost a parallel set of circumstances where matter follows a slightly altered logic. Glass may behave like stone, surfaces may shift between opacity and reflectivity, and materials may be grown into their final shapes rather than cut to fit.
When you create functional pieces, do you approach them differently than your more contemplative works?
What interests me is when a piece serves a use, but at the same time destabilizes your perception of what it is. A table that seems to float, or a mirror that behaves in unexpected ways. I incorporate function as a magic trick, as an illusion. So I see my work as a continuum where the job becomes an entry point into a more ambiguous experience. I’m often asked if my work belongs to the design world or the art world, but I don’t really think in those terms.
On your website, you ask the question “Design or Conversion?” What are you trying to induce with this idea?
“Design” broadly means solving a problem by creating an object, but I am more interested in changing the nature of the material itself. Metamorphosis indicates a deeper transformation, almost alchemical. What I hope is that moment when the viewer is no longer sure whether they are looking at something familiar or something that has been fundamentally changed. In the word “transmutation,” there is the idea of magic, of turning lead into gold, of invention, and all of this resonates with me.
There seems to be an element of world-building in your work. Is there a common line connecting these pieces?
There’s certainly some form of worldbuilding, but it’s not narrative in the literal sense. They are more like parts of a larger system that continues to grow in order to reveal itself. Every creation and every exhibition becomes a means of introducing new elements, whether sculptural, sound or even aromatic. Over time, the idea is that this environment is slowly revealed as a set of conditions that we must discover. The “Inca City” slowly reveals itself to me and everyone else.
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