Jim Lambie has taken over the Hirshhorn Museum lobby with his Zobop.
Sprawling all over the room, infusing it with an electric energy, the Glasgow-based artist has covered the space with a rainbow of fluorescent vinyl tape -- a style he has dubbed "Zobop."
Concealing the lobby's old floor, made of a bureaucratic shade of brownish-gray aggregate rock, the yellow, red, white and silver stripes curve around the information desk and zoom up hallways, making it hard to resist running around, arms outstretched like airplane wings.
"There's a kind of vibrational quality to the art in the way he really enlivens space with energy," said Anne Ellegood, associate curator at the Hirshhorn, who invited Lambie to participate as part of the museum's Directions series. Along with three other artists, Lambie was nominated for the Tate Museum's 2005 Turner Prize.
Museum-goers have been able to see the work progress over the past week, as Lambie and a crew of assistants and volunteers have been working to finish the floor. Lambie said he has lost count of how many of the site-specific Zobops he's made, but estimates the number at about 30.
As for the name Zobop itself, he claims to have seen it sprayed on a wall in Glasgow and liked the musicality of the word. He likens it to doo-wop or be-bop.
The finished product, along with sculptures created on-site, will be on display Friday at a special Hirshhorn After Hours preview.
Lambie creates much of his work from second-hand items and will showcase several sculptures made from materials he found while shopping in the District. Items found at a U Street flea market and a Goodwill store in Arlington will be parts of the display.
One of Lambie's new pieces is of an oversized eyelash cut out of aluminum, painted black and covered with blue glitter. The eyelash will hang from the ceiling by old belts and rotate like a disco ball.
In addition, Lambie will display a painted ceramic bird as well as a sculpture that incorporates, in part, a Rorschach inkblot-style image constructed from the images of dead musicians like Kurt Cobain and Billie Holiday.
Much of Lambie's work is musically-influenced (he used to be in a band called The Boy Hairdressers). At the Friday's opening, he will take turns spinning music with DJ Neville Chamberlain, who owns Adam's Morgan's Crooked Beat Records.
--Dan Miller, Express
