Blog
August Art Trail
Jim Lambie
21/08/2014
Last week I spanned the UK in my search for visual stimulation. I saw the Hayward exhibition 'The Human Factor', and was struck by what a lot of shop dummies there were. When you see several together you have to assume that each means something different - do they all mean the same dummy thing or different dummy thing? My own Human Factor would have included Frances Upritchard and Stephen Claydon, two of my top art idols.
I also visited both Hunterian museums, coming over all faint at the London one with a superfluity of cream-coloured slimy bodyparts in formaldehyde. The vast vaulted Glasgow Hunterian was more up my street, like a massive trainless Liverpool Street station elegantly dotted with modern glass cases. Favourites include the trim brass and chrystal prisms, the giant bronze tuning fork (as yet unheard by curator Nicky Reeves) and the inky 19th century miniature lava-flow making its imperceptible way down a three-step staircase.
At the Edinburgh Fruitmarket I saw Jim Lambie - he has had a lot of mileage over that stripy floor. The sculptures seemed arbitrary, unconnected with the entirety of the concept. Two pieces worked for me - black binliners dripping paint onto the floor and a sparkly black turntable with multicoloured hangers. Both made a physical connection to the floor rather than a juxtaposition or ornamental placing that was not linked to the flowing and pulsing physics of the stripes.
I also visited both Hunterian museums, coming over all faint at the London one with a superfluity of cream-coloured slimy bodyparts in formaldehyde. The vast vaulted Glasgow Hunterian was more up my street, like a massive trainless Liverpool Street station elegantly dotted with modern glass cases. Favourites include the trim brass and chrystal prisms, the giant bronze tuning fork (as yet unheard by curator Nicky Reeves) and the inky 19th century miniature lava-flow making its imperceptible way down a three-step staircase.
At the Edinburgh Fruitmarket I saw Jim Lambie - he has had a lot of mileage over that stripy floor. The sculptures seemed arbitrary, unconnected with the entirety of the concept. Two pieces worked for me - black binliners dripping paint onto the floor and a sparkly black turntable with multicoloured hangers. Both made a physical connection to the floor rather than a juxtaposition or ornamental placing that was not linked to the flowing and pulsing physics of the stripes.
