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IT’S TIME TO FIGHT AND IT’S TIME TO STOP FIGHTING
September 15, 2012 @ 7:00 pm - October 20, 2012 @ 5:00 pm
Charlie James Gallery is delighted to present It’s Time to Fight, and It’s Time to Stop Fighting, the second solo show by gallery artist Steve Lambert.
The center piece of Lambert’s upcoming show is Capitalism Works For Me! True/False, which is on a nationwide tour of museums, non‐profits and public spaces in 2011 and 2012. The sign has been exhibited in Cleveland, Boston, San Diego, and Santa Fe, NM so far this year, and its travels will continue after the gallery show concludes in October. The Capitalism project is among Lambert’s most ambitious to date, in both its scale and its level of provocation. The sign itself blares a question seldom posed so clearly, while also serving to divine public opinion and understanding about capitalism. At every stop on the sign’s aforementioned tour, Lambert interviews viewers about their experience of the piece, posing whether capitalism does in fact ‘work for them’. These video‐captured testimonials illustrate how people define and understand capitalism, and their relationship to it.
Lambert
will
also
present
five
new
sign
sculptures
that
amplify
the
question(s)
posed
in
Capitalism.
If
the
Capitalism
project
asks
its
question(s)
to
the
vox
populi,
this
group
of
five
new
sign
sculptures
speaks
directly
to
the
demographic
of
people
equipped
to
acquire
them.
Reflecting
a
fresh
awareness
that
a
broad
swath
of
corporate
and
individual
1%‐ers
have
collected
his
work
over
three
years
of
gallery
exhibitions,
Lambert
has
decided
to
create
visual
reminders,
admonitions,
and
encouragements
to
those
in
positions
to
collect
the
work.
Using
combinations
of
neon
and
incandescent
lights,
one
piece
exclaims
GIVE
AND
GIVE
AND
GIVE!
Another
reminds
viewers
to
TELL
THE
TRUTH,
while
another
one
warns
of
the
inverse
relationship
that
can
operate
between
WEALTH
and
HAPPINESS.
A
book
compiling
the
tour
of
the
Capitalism
project,
including
this
gallery
exhibition,
is
being
compiled
now
and
will
be
published
in
2013.
Steve Lambert (b. 1976 Los Angeles) is cofounder and director of the Center for Artistic Activism and recently accepted a faculty appointment to SUNY Purchase. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of the Sheldon Museum, the Progressive Insurance Company collection and the US Library of Congress, among others. He has collaborated with the Yes Men, winning awards from Prix Arts Electronica, Rhizome/The New Museum, the Creative Work Fund, Adbusters Media Foundation, the California Arts Council, and others. Previous to his SUNY appointment Lambert was a faculty member @ SMFA Boston, and a Senior Fellow @ the Eyebeam Center for Arts and Technology before that. Lambert earned his BFA @ the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from UC Davis. Lambert lives and works in Beacon, NY.