Where Spirits Dwell

Continuing his exploration of theatrical staging and filmic techniques, for the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014) Dutch artist Gabriel Lester created a new, large-scale, site-specific installation, Where Spirits Dwell (2014). His enchanting piece provides a focal point for a cluster of works exploring film and theatre language within the unique architectural interior of Carriageworks.

Where Spirits Dwell distils and snap-freezes a mood-setting moment from cinematic language; Lester presents an eternal moment where the passage of time appears to be suspended. Caught mid-breeze, curtains billow, and light and shadow play across the space. Passing in, through or out of the scene, a suspended wind, indicated by the fluttering cloth, holds numerous moods – menace, anticipation, apprehension, seduction, romance, glamour – magic, or a horrible reality in coexistence. Resembling a film still, Lester’s paused image evokes a haunting sense of the cinematic and embodies its penchant for seductive illusion.

Lester shows the nucleus of the mood moment: the instant when one type of energy changes to another, to establish the emotional force of the scene. Here is the juncture led up to and retreated from as the narrative plays out. Yet Lester dislodges this cinematic effect from its need to cue a specific genre or story, trapping the moment of mood-shift at its peak to set its subliminal messaging scattering to manifold imaginary thoughts.

From the mysterious man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz to the shadowy figure cast against the shower curtain in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, filmmakers have used the simple yet enigmatic presence of the humble curtain to great effect: both to reveal and to conceal from view.

Lester’s curtains flutter as if disturbed by an incubus or succubus. Curtains are used with purpose in this mise en scène, for their physical, spirited effect, of course, but also as a reference to the stimuli that flow in through the curtains that Sigmund Freud symbolically opens on behalf of those who desire to imagine and dream. When discussing the recollection of playwright Casimir Bonjour, Freud establishes that a ‘moment’ of dreaming can contain an accelerated flow of ideas, which is much like cinematic time. Here, Lester combines the dream work of Freud’s analysis with the dream factory of cinema.

A history of electronic music production and an interest in theatre, writing and film led Lester to study cinema before completing a postgraduate art degree at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam. Lester interweaves sound, video, performance and installation to create artworks that examine the power of illusion and the space between imagination and reality, questioning our perception of the world around us. Cinematic techniques, pantomime and theatrical illusion are important influences in Lester’s work. How to Act (1999) was a minimalistic multimedia installation that explored the possibilities of cinematography through sound and lighting effects. Composed of a stage devoid of props, actors or any of the other familiar elements of theatre, the audio and visual effects that usually contribute to the atmosphere of a performance here became the focus of viewers’ attention. The empty stage was bathed in coloured lights programmed to change in synchronisation with the carefully composed and edited soundtrack, creating a visually dramatic narrative in the absence of a tangible story or plot.

Named for a post-production film editing technique in which shots are combined in order to move to the next scene, Transition 2012 (2012) is an architectural sculpture installed in Karlsaue Park that Lester created for documenta 13 (2012). Cinematic transitions are often used to indicate a change in mood or a shift in narrative, or to imply a sense of time passing; lights and images fade out and in again and a new scene begins. Similarly with Lester’s sculpture, the audience experiences the sensation of light fading behind them as they enter a curved tunnel. Reaching a moment of transitional blackness they move into the light once again, entering a new scene and seeing the world from a different angle.

Selected solo exhibitions of Lester’s work include ‘Suspension of Disbelief’, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2011); ‘Dilzis’, Rodea Gallery, Istanbul (2010); ‘ProMotion’, Z33, Hasselt (2009); ‘The Last Smoking Flight’, Gallery Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2008); and ‘BIG BANG’, Bloomberg Space, London (2007). Recent group exhibitions include 55th Venice Biennale (2013); 11th Sharjah Biennial (2013); documenta 13, Kassel (2012); ‘Blind Cut’, Marlborough Chelsea Gallery, New York (2012); ‘Secret Societies’, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2011); ‘Television Commune’, Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul (2011); ‘I am Not a Studio Artist’, SALT, Istanbul (2011); and 29.