Gonzalo Lebrija
Who knows where the time goes
15 October–20 November 2013
Faggionato Gallery
49 Albemarle Street
London W1S 4JR
Hours: Monday–Friday 10am–5:30pm;
Saturday 10am–4pm
Faggionato Gallery is delighted to present a solo exhibition by the renowned Mexican artist Gonzalo Lebrija.
Lebrija’s compelling and refined conceptual works offer a perspective on our modern age, critical of a society that no longer believes in Myths, Gods or Monsters and yet remains fearful, isolated and restless. The artist’s videos, photographs and installations are imbued with a probing intensity, as he invites us to observe political and corporate structures, male violence, and reflects on traditional hierarchies and long-held assumptions. Often with a wistful and bittersweet melancholy, Lebrija’s works ensure that we examine our own desires and reactions to these themes.
This exhibition, Who knows where the time goes, refers in its title to the Nina Simone song and documents a performance based on Lebrija’s own act of shooting books. Through this action Lebrija intends to establish an intimate dialogue between specific existential concepts—the theory that values are primarily demonstrated in acts not words; that these acts, like ripples on the sea, are persistent. It also alludes to a possible suspension of time, and by default brings us back to reality—and to the actual impossibility of this notion. This is in contrast with the permanency of the ideas found in poetry and literature, through the chapters, paragraphs and sentences in books. The discourse is developed through the process of selecting the literature, and the subsequent sublime act of shooting the books.
The installation is composed of thirty black and white photographs of these books, at the moment of impact by the bullet. The action behind each image remains the same, but the result always different, both poetic and violent. Alongside these photographs is a six-minute video presenting the scene of the action, including both full shoots and close-ups of the books flying through the air. Is this an act of violence, with its inevitable association of burning books and extreme right-wing beliefs? Or is it simply a repetitive action, bringing to mind Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence? Although the great thinkers write these books, at the end they are no wiser about the human condition than the ordinary man.
Faggionato Gallery is also delighted to announce a pop-up exhibition by Lebrija taking place at Howick Place, and showing a second series of works by the artist—separate from Who knows where the time goes and yet equally demonstrative of some of the artist’s fundamental concerns.
Continuing the themes of his previous project, Le Trou Noir, Floreo removes both horses and rider, capturing the movement of the lasso alone—distilling that moment of both energy and time.
The ropes become like sculpture, but in reality this is an image representative of just a fraction of a second.
Howick Place
12 Francis Street
London SW1P 1QN
15–20 October 11am–4pm; 21 October–20 November by appointment
Biography
Born in 1972, Gonzalo Lebrija lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico. Lebrija has exhibited extensively in Latin America, the USA and Europe. Recent exhibitions include the 13th Istanbul Biennale, while a forthcoming solo exhibition, Possibility of Disaster, has been curated by Humberto Moro at the Center for the Arts in Monterey. Other exhibitions include Speculating Drift at the Museum of Modern Art, Mexico DF; Resisting the Future at the Museo Amparo in Puebla and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; The Distance Between You and Me, at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Never more, never less, group exhibition at the Museum of Memory and Tolerance in the City of Mexico; Conversations II, in collaboration with John Baldessari and Energy Effects, at the MCA, Denver, and Viva Mexico!, in Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw. Since 2011 he has been a patron of MCA Denver and is co-founder and co-director of the OPA, Office for Art Projects in Guadalajara.
