JIM LAMBIE

The works unfold across the mirage-like shimmer of Zobop Broadband (White and Chrome) — a new vinyl floor work composed of white and chrome stripes. Its lines trace and mirror the features of the gallery, with their thickness taking a cue from the concrete cover of a power outlet. There is a renewed sensitivity to be found in Lambie’s handling of a range of materials in Hot Foam. Leg/Ladder (Tele – Vision) is a rope ladder composed from twine and second-hand chair legs. However, the scale and delicacy of the twine means it could never actually be scaled, lending the piece an otherworldly aspect. The ethereal glow of the cling film and tape of Gold Love Forever contrasts with the dazzle of the vinyl. The dimensions of its sheets are taken from the gallery’s skylights; Lambie lays the celestial, crumpled, at our feet.

The resin-paintings containing sunglasses lenses running along the walls continue the theme of material sensitivity and temporal transportation. Their colour comes not from the resin itself but from light refracted from the painted panels behind. A key touchstone for this series is radical French writer Arthur Rimbaud’s poem Voyelles (1871–72). In this work, Rimbaud associates each vowel of the Roman alphabet with a colour, dedicating his verses to a set of synaesthetic associations. Lambie’s titles begin with specific months in his life – moving across certain dates in the lifespan of the building itself too – and conclude with a fragment of poetry by the artist. While for Lambie the arrangements and titles have specific biographical associations, the various compositions with their overlapping colours remain open to interpretation, and the elegiac titles provide further prompts to reflection.

Jim Lambie (b. 1964, Scotland) lives and works in Glasgow. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2005 and represented Scotland at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. His first major artist monograph was published by Rizzoli, New York in the Spring of 2017. Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘Concrete Sphinx’, Oscaar Mouligne, Kyoto (2024); ‘Buttercup’, The Modern Institute, Airds Lane, Glasgow (2021); ‘Spiral Scratch’, Pacific Place, Hong Kong (2018); ‘Electrolux’, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2016); ‘La scala’, Gerhardsen Gerner, Berlin (2016); ‘Sun Rise, Sun Ra, Sunset’, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo (2015); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2014); ‘Shaved Ice’, The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2012); ‘Metal Urbain’, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2010); ‘Unknown Pleasures’, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2008); ‘Forever Changes’, Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, Glasgow (2008); ‘RSVP: Jim Lambie’, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2008); and ‘Directions – Jim Lambie’, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (2006). Selected group shows include: ‘You have to see it’, Fundación Juan March, Madrid (2025); ‘The Mirror of Production’, Kunsthall Oslo, Oslo (2022); ‘My Mapping’, Fundación van Gogh Museum, Arles (2020); ‘Op Art in Focus’, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2018); ‘I still believe in miracles’, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2016); ‘You Imagine What You Desire’ 19th Sydney Biennale, Sydney (2014); ‘Undone: Making and Unmaking in Contemporary Sculpture’, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2010); ‘The New Décor’, Hayward Gallery, London (2010); ‘Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today’, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2009) & MOMA, New York (2008); and ‘Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century’, New Museum, New York (2007).