Mental Oyster: Jim Lambie

Anton Kern Gallery is proud to present Mental Oyster, a new exhibition of artwork by Scottish artist Jim Lambie. Opening April 1st, his third solo show in New York features new sculptural work fabricated from doors, vinyl tape and sequined tube tops. 

Jim Lambie’s sculpture and installations reference music via a do-it-yourself aesthetic that favors punk over polish. In previous exhibitions, objects imbued with musical histories such as vintage record players, Puma tracksuits and record covers offered celebration of direct experience over any kind of specific ideology.

Lambie’s unique process of alteration permits the most humble of objects to take on totemic proportions. Two sculptures in Mental Oyster occupy floor and ceiling with immersive reach. In one work, an incongruent network of plumbing pipes and synthetic, stretch tube-tops flickers above the floor and meanders across the gallery. Underfoot, horizontal bands of black and white gloss tape transform the concrete floor with dizzying optical thrust. Lambie’s vinyl striations suggest the dispersion of equally vibrant sound waves through space. Against this pulsating field, the artist’s re-fabricated objects hum like notes on a musical stave.