You put a record on and it’s like all the edges disappear
— Jim Lambie
Jim Lambie (b.1964, Glasgow) is internationally recognized for immersive, color-saturated installations that transform everyday materials into exuberant sculptural and architectural interventions. Rooted in music, humor and the use of found objects, his practice brings a distinctive pop sensibility to contemporary sculpture while remaining closely attuned to space, rhythm and sensory experience.
Originally active as a musician, Lambie’s work is deeply informed by the spirit of punk and rock culture that shaped his Glaswegian upbringing. Music functions not only as a reference point but as a structural principle: repetition, improvisation and tempo underpin his approach to making. Record players, vinyl sleeves, speakers and related ephemera recur throughout his work, embedding sound culture into visual form and grounding his installations in personal and collective memory.
Lambie is perhaps best known for his architectural interventions, in which floors, walls or thresholds are meticulously striped with brightly colored vinyl or electrical tape. Elsewhere, paint-soaked mattresses, customized mirrors, doors, clothing and junk-shop ornaments are transformed into sculptures that balance humor with a sense of pathos, elevating the detritus of modern life through wit and material sensitivity.
Educated at the Glasgow School of Art, Lambie continues to live and work in Glasgow. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2005, he represented Scotland at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, and was the subject of a major monograph published by Skira Rizzoli in 2017. He has presented significant institutional exhibitions internationally, including Directions, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2006); Eight Miles High, ACCA Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2008); Unknown Pleasures, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2008); RSVP, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2008); ZOBOP, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2010); Shaved Ice, Art Basel Unlimited, Basel (2015); and Spiral Scratch, Pacific Place, Hong Kong (2018). He also participated in the Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2004).
Lambie’s work is held in numerous public collections worldwide, including Tate, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.