Three Wishes (Dig It)
2024
Exhibited at Ryan Lee Gallery, New York City, United States of America
Three Wishes (Dig It), is a multimedia installation that assembles an interconnected series of works that pay tribute to the pioneering American jazz legend Thelonious Monk and his longtime friendship with jazz patron, “Nica” de Koenigswarter.
Approximately 20 minutes long, Dig It presents a fictionalized retelling of the relationship between
Nica and Monk, as he lived with her in his final years. In the film, Nica leads us through a nostalgic collage of shared memories with the musician. Represented in the dazed state that overcame him later in life, the film chronicles Monk’s final “dream” (a state which recalls Monk’s Dream, one of his most famous albums; and the onset of his likely undiagnosed mental illness). Referring to the film as “sculptural cinema,” Lester engages elements from his broader art practice – for example utilizing animation and computer-generated images, or filming models to re-create larger-scale scenes – and incorporates multiple interpretations of Monk’s original jazz standard “Pannonica.”
In the series of three inkjet prints, Lester’s tightly cropped compositions depict a record player whose cartridge and stylus have been replaced by a Bucculatrix pannonica moth, from which Nica’s name was derived. By adding a layer of velvet through the process of silk screening with flocking (powdered felt), Lester embellishes the surface with a sensuous texture alluding to the tactile experience of petting a cator pinning a moth.
A continuation of his earlier cucoloris works, Lester also presents a series of six images printed on aluminum. Lester was able to look through the family’s personal archives in Paris and source Nica’s original photographs of jazz pioneers from the 1950s through the 70s. Creating manipulated reproductions with overlaid shadows, Lester employs the cucoloris technique used in cinema, which projects light through cut-out cardboard, branches or fronds to simulate shadows.
Alongside the two-dimensional works is an illuminated installation of custom-made Edison bulbs, each communicating a message through the cursive twirls of its filament. The bulbs, presented in small clusters, depict various wishes from some of jazz’s most iconic musicians.
Dig It coalesces shared dreams into evocative and diverse poetic forms. Lester’s overarching narrative captures not only the arc of a mythologized friendship, but also the energy of the familiar, nostalgic rhythms of jazz.
