Gabriel Lester, Urban Surface (2005) I like it All actions Visual artist Gabriel Lester creates spatial installations and poetic films. In his visual work, he uses cinematic means and techniques. The film “Urban Surface” was shot in nocturnal Stockholm. The movie shows the “city’s surface” with images of fluttering leaves, swirling plumes of smoke from chimneys, the wind that blows through a curtain and flickering neon lights. “Urban Surface” depicts the life in the city without people. These ‘mood shots’ or ‘inserts’ are usually followed by narrative scenes. The images guide and evoke expectations. They aren’t meant to tell a story, but to render an atmosphere. These kinds of aesthetic atmospheric images are part of every film and form the punctuation of the cinema, so to speak. The images arouse memories of locations and situations in the city. No matter what city it is. In other works Lester also manages to evoke associations and memories with simple, subtle means. In the installation Cross Section (2006), for instance, which he made for the exhibition The Urban Condition at Museum De Paviljoens. The music strengthens the suggestive nature of the – partly manipulated – atmospheric images. It is the soundtrack to the Jean Luc Godard film Pierrot le Fou (1965). There is something exciting and melodramatic about the music that therefore evokes an ambiguous feeling, as do the images. Gabriel Lester currently lives and works in Brussels. He studied audiovisual arts, amongst others, at the art academies in Breda and Brussels. He also studied at the Amsterdam State Academy. Previously, he worked as a director for video clips and commercials. Mireille de Putter Gabriel Lester, Urban Surface Gabriel Lester, 1972, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Urban Surface, 2005 DVD, 10' 7" acquisition 2005, Museum De Paviljoens

• Trefwoorden
  film, stad, monografie, beeld- en/of geluidsdrager
• Geografisch trefwoord
  Nederland (NL)
• Persoonstrefwoord
  Gabriel Lester