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BIOGRAPHY | SELECTED WORKS | RECENT EXHIBITIONS | SELECTED PRESS | INTERVIEW
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BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1972 in Amsterdam, Gabriel Lester is a representative figure among a young generation of European artists active on the international scene. Lester works across various disciplines including cinema, music, performance, installation, sculpture and architecture. Atmospheric and perceptual, many of Lester’s works evolve around the very nature of the media of our time. He transforms the space and time by meticulously altering the media and forms. Strongly inspired by cinema, Lester’s works challenge the reality of perception and draw on collective imagination through his dramatic theatrical illusions.
Gabriel Lester held solo shows at Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius (2016), de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam (2016), Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai (2014), Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2012), the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2011), the Bloomberg Space, London (2007), and Centre d’Art Neuchâtel (2001). He has also exhibited at many major museums and biennales, for instance, 19th Biennale of Sydney (Sydney), Sifang Art Museum (Nanjing), Nam June Paik Art Center (Yongin), Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam), Gemeentemuseum (Den Haag), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, Ohio), Performa 09 (New York), Artists Space (New York), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Liverpool Biennial (Liverpool), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Busan Biennial (Busan), Baltic Triennal, PS1 (New York), Witte de With (Rotterdam), Rijksakademie (Amsterdam), World Expo (Hannover), etc.
Lester’s work has been placed in many prestigious collections like Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Stedelijk Museum, Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, MUDAM, Fondation Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Rabobank Art Collection, 21CMuseum, Louisville, United States. Lester collaborates with Rem Koolhaas/OMA and an interdisciplinary team on an architectural project at United Nations’ New York Headquarter. In 2012 Lester participated in the dOCUMENTA (13). He was also shortlisted for the 2013 Absolut Art Award.
Download the complete artist biography.
SELECTED WORKS
RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS
“The Nine Day Week”, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania
, 2016
“Gabriel Lester’s Unsolved Extravaganza”, de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2016
“Forced Perspective – Encounter of Kinds”, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2015
“Cleromancy”, Ryan Lee Gallery, New York, USA, 2015
“Habitat Sequences”, Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2014
“The Ears Have Walls”, Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai, China, 2014
“Follies”, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany, 2014
RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
“Please fasten your seat belt as we are experiencing some turbulence”, Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai, China, 2017
“The Third Kochi-Muziris Biennale”, Kochi-Muziris, India
, 2016
“PolyLester”, Public Works, Utrecht Central Station, Netherlands, 2016
“Heaven”, Hell & Earth, Stedelijk Museum’s – Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (forthcoming), 2016
“Lekker licht”, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Netherlands, 2015
“When I Give, I Give Myself”, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2015
“6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art”, Pavilion No.1 of VDNKh, Moscow, Russia, 2015
“Salt water”, 14th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, 2015
Folkestone Triennial, Folkestone, UK, 2015
The 5th Marrakech Biennial, Morocco, 2015
“19th Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire”, Sydney, Australia, 2014
SELECTED PRESS
ARTFORUM, “Gabriel Lester DE APPEL ARTS CENTRE”, by Huib Haye van der Werf, October, 2016 [download pdf]
Leap, “Gabriel Lester: The Ears Have Walls”, by Lu Jing, Issue 151, April, 2014 [download pdf]
Blouin Artinfo, “Juliana Engberg’s Bold, Triumphant Sydney Biennale”, by Nicholas Forrest, March, 2014 [download pdf]
Oriental Morning Post, “All Walls in the World is from the Same Family”, by Zheng Yijing, March, 2014 [download pdf]
Shanghai Weekly, “Gabriel Lester – The Wandering Dutch”, by Yang Yang, March, 2014 [download pdf]
Art Papers, “Review of Venice biennale”, by Fatos Ostek, October, 2013 [download pdf]
Artforum, “Now You See It”, by Claire Bishop, Issue 52, July, 2013 [download pdf]
Art Review, “Momentum 7 Various venues, Moss 22 June – 29 September”, by Jacquelyn Davies, October, 2013 [download pdf]
Frieze Blog, “55th Venice Biennale: Afterthoughts”, by Dan Fox, June, 2013 [download pdf]
This Is Tomorrow, “Venice Biennale 2013: oO”, by Francesca Cavil, June, 2013 [download pdf]
Uncube, “Venice: The Ad-Hoc & The Kamikaze”, by Elvia Wilk, June, 2013 [download pdf]
Artforum, “Sharjah Biennial 11″, by Claire Bishop, May, 2013 [download pdf]
Frieze, “Sharjah Biennale 11″, by Jennifer Higgie, Issue 156, May, 2013 [download pdf]
Art Agenda, “Re: Emerge, Towards a New Cultural Cartography”, by Antonila Alampi, Sharjah Biennial, March, 2013 [download pdf]
Fortune Generation, “Dancing with the Space”, by Ren Chenglu, Issue 18, January, 2013 [download pdf]
Hi Art, “Cinema without Films”, by Jing Zhu, Issue 1 & 2, 2013 [download pdf]
Global Times, “Viva Roxy”, by Sun Shuangjie, December, 2012 [download pdf]
Time Out Shanghai, “Unmaking Movies”, edited by Sam Gaskin, December, 2012 [download pdf]
The Wall Street Journal, “A Party, Every Five Years, for 750,000 Guests”, by Kelly Crow, June, 2012 [download pdf]
Frieze, “Ideal Syllabus: Gabriel Lester”, Issue 140, June – August, 2011 [download pdf]
INTERVIEW
Interviewed by Blouin Artinfo. blouinartinfo.com, September 2013.
Interviewed by the Guardian. theguardian.com, February 2014.