SCI-FI MOSQUITOS & SMOKE: 6 CINEMATIC EXHIBITIONS AROUND THE GLOBE

MONICA USZEROWICZ

Gonzalo Lebrija: Veladuras Nocturnas, at Kohn Gallery

Guadalajara, Mexico-based artist Gonzalo Lebrija is represented by Los Angeles’ Kohn Gallery as of last November; Veladuras Nocturnas is his first solo exhibition there, and the show spans all three of its exhibition spaces. In addition to a new sculptural work and nine new paintings, Lebrija’s film Via Láctea is on view, shown in the United States for the first time (it’s also at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City). Via Láctea—which translates in English to Milky Way—is about tobacco smoke, its fluidity, slow movement, and unavoidable relation to the body (where it circulates). There’s a reference elsewhere in the exhibition to the eternal flame; here, in Lebrija’s film, it’s ever-burning and still more human. The human experience is part and parcel of his work, after all, abstracted and poetic it may be