Gabriel Lester: Cleromancy

RYAN LEE is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Amsterdam-based inventor Gabriel Lester in RLProject and RLWindow. On view in RLPRoject is The Big One (2011), a video, as well as six new and related photographs of vintage lottery tickets lost in space and time. A companion piece, Cleromancy (2010), is on view in RLWindow.
Lester is interested in how visual sensibilities are formed, and how it conditions and codifies our relation to who we are and what we imagine the world and its potential to be. Employing the film or projector image, he produces cinematographic narratives. He further investigates suspension in reality through a dualistic approach of providing associative magic thought and rational consciousness. This exists as his proposal on how to relate to the world through individual and collective perspectives.
In the videos on view, Lester mimics the ideas of the "Dream Factory" in the spectacle of lottery through a micro/macro relationship with one another. Originally commissioned by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Big One discusses themes of ceremony, spectacle, and destiny through an overarching narrative devoid of plot. The film observes a group of people, not quite characters, as they engage in the various stages of the ritual of lottery. It is a look at man’s desire for change, his sense of cosmic justice, and self-reflection. Cleromancy, filmed at the Netherlands State Lottery, explores these same themes from a different approach. Lester captures it in extreme close-up, losing the logic of the draw but amplifying the spectacle of the ritual. Again without a linear storyline or specific characters, the film simply shows the hand of lady luck as she guides each ball to the final winning number.