Gonzalo Lebrija: Miracle of the Eternal Present

This exhibition surveys more than two decades of work by Mexican artist Gonzalo Lebrija. Using a wide range of mediums—photography, video, sculpture, and painting—Lebrija reframes familiar objects or activities, sometimes altered only slightly, to imbue them with poetic and symbolic force. 

His works are generally unified by his search for evidence of higher meaning or transcendence. At times, he finds this transcendence through stasis: Cuban cigar smokers captured in a moment of repose offer a counterpoint to the agitated state of a modern, consumer-oriented society. 

He also finds extraordinary meaning in heroic figures like charros, traditional Mexican horse riders, with their majestic costumes and their virtuoso rope work. Lebrija is always looking for moments of interruption, breaks in our everydayness, events that introduce into modern society a sense of the miraculous.

Born in 1972, Gonzalo Lebrija lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico. Widely exhibited, he has had solo exhibitions at Havana’s Palacio de las Bellas Artes in Cuba, the Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Mexico, the 13th Istanbul Biennale, and The Center for the Arts, Monterrey, Mexico. His sculpture, History of Suspended Time (A Monument to the Impossible), is currently on view across from the museum.

Organized by Palm Springs Art Museum, this exhibition is curated by Adam Lerner, JoAnn McGrath Executive Director/CEO.

This season’s exhibitions are sponsored by the Herman & Faye Sarkowsky Charitable Foundation and Yvonne & Steve (in memoriam) Maloney.

Gonzalo Lebrija, El Rumor de la Discordia, 2017, bronze and concrete, 23 x 18 x 5.5 inches. © Gonzalo Lebrija.