The language used by Gabriel Lester is the language of cinema. By dissecting elements that appear to make up a logical whole, he exposes the gimmicks of the moving image, but also displays its beauty and complexity. This is how he worked in his previous exhibitions in Galerie Fons Welters. In ‘The Clock and the Clockwork’ (2003) he showed us a stage set for possible scenes, empty and without any action but full of significance, full of possible stories. In ‘Choreography’ (2000) the location itself becomes an actor, and the triptych of these images composes a ballet of its own.
‘The Last Smoking Flight’ is a new step in Gabriel Lester’s oeuvre, which will also be on view in the near future at the Liverpool Biennial. To some extent Lester abandons the dissection of the image here to form his own complex entity; one in which scenery, sound, light and actors come together in a poetic hypnotic triptych. The tension is built up in each scene, in which the release of this tension would normally yield the pleasure of watching. That is the essence of any Hollywood movie. But here, the constant build-up of tension is itself the fulfilment, and at the same time the mechanism that produces the hypnotic experience.