Gabriel Lester

Gabriel Lester (Amsterdam, 6 February 1972) is a visual artist, and film director living and working in Amsterdam and Shanghai. His practice encompasses music, cinema, spatial installation, performance art, sculpture, architecture, photography, and prose.

Family and early life

Gabriel Lester was born in Amsterdam on 6 February 1972. Son of Mark Dunning Lester (New York, USA 1947) and Frederika Rolande Wilhelmina Erwteman (Bruxelles, Belgium 1944 † Groningen, Netherlands 2006). Lester grew up in a cooperative commune named ‘Impuls’ in the small village of Pieterburen, in the province of Groningen (the Netherlands).

Early career in music

In 1984 he moved to the province’s capital; the city of Groningen. It was around this time that Lester became interested in early street and hip-hop culture. He began graffiti writing under the ‘tag name’ Catch. Lester later produce rap music using so called tape loops, cassette decks and turntables before moving into digital samplers and sequencers. In 1986 he formed the group ‘Definitely Def’ with Andy Godderis. In 1989, Eugen Walker joined the group to become ‘Utile Connection’ (or U.C.). U.C. would record several tracks and perform in the Netherlands and Germany.

Education and early career in cinema

In 1991 Lester moved to Amsterdam, where he frequently performed freestyle spoken-word and entertained crowds together with various jazz and Hip Hop musicians. This resulted in weekly concerts, performances and several album and CD recordings. In that same year Lester attended a weekend course that was dubbed the pre-cinema school.

In 1994 Lester moved to the city of Breda (the Netherlands), where he attended a course of audiovisual arts at the Sint Joost art academy. After successfully completing the first year, Lester decided to travel instead of spending more time at the academy. That summer he traveled by bus to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, where he spent a number of months researching and writing his first feature length screenplay titled ‘Travel without a Course’. Upon his return from Georgia, Lester entered a course in experimental cinema at the Sint-Lukas Hogeschool in Bruxelles (Belgium). Again he concluded the first year of a four-year course, without the inclination to continue.

Lester returned to Amsterdam in 1995 and worked as a director, assistant director and editor of video-clips and commercials for the film production company Filmhouse. In 1996 he was invited by Carlos Amorales, with whom he had previously worked on a short film, to collaborate in his Amorales art and performance project; a collaboration that lasted for two and a half years. This project introduced Lester to the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, to which he applied and was admitted in 1998. Before starting at the Rijksakademie, Lester traveled to Iceland, where he stayed five months farming and writing a collection of short stories. Upon his return to Amsterdam Lester self-published a selection of the stories in a book called “Over and Done With”.

Early artistic practice

In January 1999 Gabriel Lester started a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie, with the intention to do further research into cinema and produce some short films. However, in April of that year, shortly after an internal open-studios, Lester decide to avoid making film-art or video-art and rather create cinematic experiences in a three dimensional fine arts practice. Later that year, at the public open-studios, he showed his first artwork, entitled “How to Act”, a light sequence mimicking the light televisions shed pared with a collection of generic movie soundtracks. Lester joined the Fons Welters Gallery that same year and concluded the Rijksakademie in 2000. At the end of 2000 Lester moved back to Brussels, where he was based until 2008.

Current artistic practice

In the years following the Rijksakademie and his move back to Brussels, Lester initially focused his practice on spatial installations, sculpture and occasional experimental film and video for publications, exhibitions and/or commissions. Later he would direct part of his attention back to writing, film directing and performing. In recent years Lester has been known to exhibit, install, publish short prose, occasionally curate and co-curate, teach and advice at art academies,post graduate courses, and direct narrative cinema. Since 2011 Lester has been partially based in Shanghai, where he has participated in several group exhibitions, leading up to his solo show ROXY at the Shanghai Minsheng museum. He is currently represented by Leo Xu Projects in Shanghai and Fons Welters in Amsterdam.

Residencies, collections, publications and commissions

• 2005-2006 ISCP, New York, USA
• 2003-2004 IASPIS, Stockholm, Sweden
• 1999-2000 Rijksakademie van Beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam
• 1995-1996 Hogeschool Sint Lukas, Brussels - Experimental Film
• 1994-1995 St. Joost Akademie voor Kunst en Vormgeving, Breda - Audio Visual

Gallery Fons Welters based in Amsterdam, represent Gabriel Lester in subsequently art and cinema.

Lester frequently collaborates with Raimundas Malasdauskas, Aaron Schuster, Onco Tattje, Job Chajes and Arnaud Hendrickx. Other collaborators include: Jennifer Tee, Freek Wambacq, Thomas Bakker, Herwig Weiser.

Lester’s work is part of several public and private collections a.o. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Publications on the work of Gabriel Lester include: ‘How to Act’ (a monograph, published by Veenman publishers), ‘Gabriel Lester’s Elevating the Witte de With’ (a catalogue, published by Paperkunsthalle ), ‘Its Hard to get Trough to You’ and ‘62 Gasoline Stations’ (both by self-published).

Works in public space, commissions and competitions include a light art façade in the Witte de Withstraat and the Funenpark in Amsterdam, periscope sculptures in The Hague and Enschede (the Netherlands) and Anyang, Gyeonggi (S-Korea), G.O.D. together with URA architects in Brussels (Belgium) and a post office together with Jennifer Tee in Culemborg (The Netherlands).

Selected exhibitions

• The Future That Was, NASA, Amsterdam (NL)
• ROXY, Minsheng museum, Shanghai (CN)
• dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (D)
• Deep Screen, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL)[1]
• BIG BANG, Bloomberg Space, London (UK)
• SEEN Boniers Konsthal, Stockholm (S) [2]
• Highlight (plan B) NICC, Free Space, PSK, Brussels (B)
• Beautiful Gamble, IASPIS, Stockholm (S)
• Cut to the Chase, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (NL)
• The Gift of Gab, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul (TUR)
• CIS, Kadist Art Foundation, Cine 13 Paris (F)
• The Prompt, Performa 09 Biennial New York (USA)
• Slow Movement, Kunsthalle Bern (CH)[3]
• Made Up, Liverpool Biennial (UK)
• Prix Jeune Peinture Belge, Palais des Beaux-Art/Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (B)
• Black Market World, Baltic Triennale, Vilnius/London (LIT/UK)
• More Than This!, Gothenburg Biennale (S)
• Rio de Janeiro Film festival Capacete, Rio de Janeiro (BR)
• Puerto Rico 04 Biennale Proyectos, Puerto Rico (USA)
• Promotion, Z33, Hasselt (B) [4]
• Suspension of Disbelief 12 februari t/m 8 mei 2011 in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (NL)[5]
• Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai (CN)

Coined Phrases and Quotes

• Trust me, I am an Artist.

External links

• Official website
• Artist Page At Fons Welters Gallery
• Lester's News at Leo Xu Projects

1. http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/gabriel_lester/
2. http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2006/10/interview_with_gabriel_lester.html
3. http://www.trouwamsterdam.nl/2010/12/8-dec-beamclub-16-gabriel-lester/
4. http://www.boijmans.nl/en/7/calendar-exhibitions/calendaritem/625/gabriel-lester

• Gabriel Lester at Artist Pension Trust