Peres Projects

Leo Gabin

09 Jan - 06 Feb 2016

Installation view
LEO GABIN
Exit/Entry
9 January - 6 February 2016

— ...we start walking on Carlsbad Blvd. A bicyclist with a red shirt is riding across the street. A red SUV is idling in the Starbucks parking lot. A girl with red shorts starts walking in front of us. As we stand in front of Starbucks, as my dog smells some bushes, a subcompact red car pulls into the parking lot, a man with a red shirt walks toward us... —

A woman named Bonnie lives in Newburgh, New York with her profoundly mentally handicapped brother and blind dog.

When a fireman moves in next to her they get in a dispute over him throwing leaves on her property.

This confrontation turns into her being gang stalked by all her neighbors and she decides to move to Oceanside, California.

But once in California she noticed the gang stalking didn’t stop. The color red becomes a focus point.

Peres Projects is pleased to announce Exit/Entry, the third solo exhibition by Leo Gabin in the gallery. The new works on aluminium and film are an evolution in Gabin’s recognizable aesthetic of appropriation and repeated, graphically iconic symbols of American life.

The exhibition is a total installation centered around the new film which is entirely composed of footage uploaded by the protagonist herself. From a collection of more than 3,000 videos, Leo Gabin makes a well thought out selection to re-create one typical day in the life of Bonnie. Literally following her from morning to night, they show the viewer, through her lens, what she sees and encounters during her daily routines. While meticulously capturing all activity in her surroundings, she is adding new associations to each banal and seemingly random event. The film shifts between reality and illusion, through a psychological projection of the world’s order. Thoroughly observed, Exit/Entry is oddly savvy. The level of obsession it portrays is utterly fascinating and disturbing, yet it is another mode of isolation prevalent in modern life.

Audio used as a voice-over has been recorded by Bonnie and sent to Leo Gabin to use in the film. Until now they haven’t met in person.

Leo Gabin is a Belgian artist trio, working together since 2000. All three were born in Ghent, Belgium, where they continue to live and work. They received their BFAs at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent. Their work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Kunstraum Muenchen, Munich, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, NYC, New Holland, St. Petersburg and White Cube, London. Gabin has also been featured in film festivals and group exhibitions including the CPH:DOX Film Festival Copenhagen (selected for New:Vision Award), IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam (Critics’ Choice), M Woods, Beijing and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt.
 

Tags: Leo Gabin, Li Gang