Jim Lambie (1964 – )

Jim Lambie was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1964 and studied at the Glasgow School of Art. In 2003 he represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale (with Claire Barclay and Simon Starling) and he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2005.

Lambie creates sculptures and installations from a range of everyday materials, including mirrors, hair-bands, belts, shoes, record sleeves and buttons. He is perhaps best known for his floor-based installations, such as Zobop (1999), made up of hundreds of lines of coloured vinyl tape, arranged in vibrant patterns across gallery floors and staircases. 

Lambie’s love of music – he played in the band The Boy Hairdressers and is a DJ – spills into works such as Let it Bleed and Micro Dot (both 2001), part of an ongoing series that turns functioning turntables into kinetic sculpture. They are often shown in pairs as Lambie is interested in the dialogue between them as they silently spin – as if they are in a constant state of transition between non-existent tracks. The turntables are covered in glitter, rendering them useless but transforming them into dazzling objects, which act almost like sparkling disco balls, reflecting light against the gallery walls. Lambie notes that ‘covering an object somehow evaporates the hard edge off the thing, and pulls you towards more of a dreamscape. The hard, day-to-day, living edge disappears.’