Steve Lambert

Others perform “I WILL TALK WITH ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING” at the Weatherspoon Museum of Art. Pictures from the opening.

I’m calling it a lecture/performance because I don’t know what exactly to call it. I’ll just say I’m taking my talks further into a direction they were already going. Come see at the Figment Festival.  You will learn things and you will be entertained.

I will also be participating in a collaborative project on Saturday near the Ferry Dock.  Keep an eye out.

“Everything You Want, Right Now!” How advertising distorts culture.

Sunday 2:30-3pm – come early, there are some great lectures including fellow Eyebeam Fellow Jeff Crouse at 4pm.
Figment Festival, Pershing Hall, Governor’s Island, NYC

From The Figment Site:

What’s wrong with advertising? Steve Lambert makes the case with a fast moving lecture that’s as funny as it is informative. Steve’s anarchist/sociologist take on how modern, non-stop persuasive messages have distorted and altered our culture will leave you plenty to ponder on the ferry ride home. Steve Lambert recently made international news with the The New York Times “Special Edition,” a replica of the grey lady announcing the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other good news. He is the founder of the Anti-Advertising Agency, lead developer of Add-Art (a Firefox addon that replaces online advertising with art) and has collaborated with numerous artists including the Graffiti Research Lab, and the Yes Men. Lambert has appeared live on NPR, the BBC, and CNN, and been reported on in the New York Times, Harper’s, The Believer, Good, Dwell, and Newsweek. He is a Senior Fellow at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York, and teaches at Parsons and Hunter College.

About Figment

FIGMENT is an annual arts event on Governors Island, with artwork in every medium, from installation to performance to music to games and many things in between. Participation is open to any artist who would like to share their work. It is a free, non-profit endeavor run by volunteers.

FIGMENT’s vision for art looks past the white-walled galleries and into the realm of participation. Art is not just something that you stand still and quietly look at – it is something you participate in. You touch it, smell it, climb it, write on it, talk to it, dance with it, play with it, learn from it… Interactive art creates a dynamic collaboration between the artist, the audience and their environment.

As a free, public, non-profit event, we aim to advance social and personal transformation through creativity. FIGMENT is uninterrupted by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. Selling or advertising goods or services is not permitted. Neither our artists nor our planners and staff are paid – everything that you see at FIGMENT is born from a simple desire to share imagination with each other and the public.

In these challenging economic times, it is important that artists devise new ways to create, share, think, and dream about what is possible. FIGMENT is an alternative to many of the shortcomings of the commercial art world— exclusive, expensive, impersonal, untouchable and often simply boring.

Famous for his role in New York’s artistic heritage and the Pop Art movement, Andy Warhol believed that everyone had it in them to be a star for fifteen minutes. Through his own art, he defined his identity and shaped the world around him. He once commented that he’d like his tombstone to say only one word: “Figment.”

Thanks to Raffi Aghapekian for being available for the news crews. Check out Self Control

Today Ars Electronica announced the winners of the Prix Ars and the New York Times Special Edition won an Award of Distinction in the Hybrid Arts category. Steve Lambert will be accepting the award at the Ars Electronica Festival in September as a member of Because We Want It: a coalition of artists, activist groups, and everyday citizens who contributed to the project.

About Prix Ars:

Since 1987, the Prix Ars Electronica has served as an interdisciplinary platform for everyone who uses the computer as a universal medium for implementing and designing their creative projects at the interface of art, technology and society. The Prix Ars Electronica, the Ars Electronica Festival, the Ars Electronica Center – Museum of the Future and the Ars Electronica Futurelab are the four divisions that comprise the Ars Electronica Linz GmbH, whose specific orientation and long-term continuity make it a unique platform for digital art and media culture. The competition is organized by the Ars Electronica Linz GmbH and ORF’s Upper Austria Regional Studio in collaboration with the OK Center for Contemporary Art and the Brucknerhaus Linz, and the prizes are awarded during the Ars Electronica Festival each year. The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important awards for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital media.

Opening Reception + Performances: 7-9:30 pm, June 19

“Our Subject is You” is the first exhibition organized by the Weatherspoon Art Museum to focus on participatory art. The artists in the exhibition rely on the involvement of the public in order for their work to be realized. They form avenues for meaningful engagement within the context of the gallery, inviting museum visitors to contribute to the creation of artwork through social interaction, collaboration, and/or performativity. Artists included in the show are Tonico Lemos Auad (Brazil/UK), Harrell Fletcher (USA), Nina Katchadourian (USA), San Keller (Switzerland), Steve Lambert (USA), Darren O’Donnell (Canada), Sherri Lynn Wood (USA) and Erwin Wurm (Austria).

In the exhibition, museum visitors will take part in the formation of artwork and through special live participatory events at the June 19th opening. Through this process, “Our Subject is You” anticipates visitors will become aware of a collapse between the traditional boundaries that define spectator from artwork, or spectator from performer, and perceive themselves to be active participants in the creation of art and culture.

The embrace of social collaboration in art has its roots in the Happenings and interactive works produced by artists such as Yoko Ono and Alan Kaprow in the 1960s. Now reformulated by globalization and the widespread use of the internet, the works in “Our Subject is You” reveal how participatory practice has increased in relevance—and prevalence—among artists over the past decade.

“Our Subject is You” is co-curated by conceptual artist and UNCG Assistant Professor of Art, Lee Walton and Weatherspoon Curator of Exhibitions, Xandra Eden. Support for San Keller’s work is generously provided by Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.

SUMMER PARTY!
Friday, June 19, 7 – 9:30 pm

Weatherspoon Art Museum – 6th Annual Summer Solstice Party + “Our Subject is You” Exhibition Premiere

An evening of music and interactive artwork. Free admission. Light food and refreshments (cash bar). Bring your cameras!

Schedule of Events

7 pm: “We Art Proud to Present” by Nina Katchadourian Not to be missed! Arrive between 7-7:30 to participate in this red carpet event.

7:45: “Weatherspoon, Dega. Dega, Weatherspoon” by Darren O’Donnell Featuring VIP guests from the Montagnard Dega Association of Greensboro.

8 pm: “Take the Stage: Open Mic” Live entertainment by Greensboro’s finest.

RELATED PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Noon @ the ‘Spoon, Tuesday, August 11, 12 pm

Artist’s Talk: Sherri Lynn Wood, Thursday, August 20, 5:30 pm

Workshop: Group Stitching Mantra (led by Sherri Lynn Wood), Saturday, August 22, 2-4 pm $10 members/$20 non-members. Contact t_dowell@uncg.edu to register.

Co-Curators’ Gallery Talk: Xandra Eden & Lee Walton, Thursday, August 27, 4 pm

Artist’s Talk: Steve Lambert, TBA

Weatherspoon Art Museum
corner of Spring Garden and Tate Streets
University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Christopher Knight reviewed Everything You Want Right Now! with some notes on The New York Times Special Edition for the LA Times.

Steve Lambert gained considerable notoriety eight days after last November’s elections when he collaborated with a group called the Yes Men in publishing a politically progressive hoax edition of the New York Times, its banner headline declaring “Iraq War Ends.” The debut Los Angeles solo show for the New York-based artist at Charlie James Gallery includes video documentation of that work, as well as well-traveled intersections between art and advertising.

Ben Marks reviews the show at San Jose Institute of Contemporary Arts for KQED Public Media for Northern CA:

Inside, we are greeted by a needlessly large plexiglass donation box by Steve Lambert titled “Steve Lambert Refuses to Participate in the Exhibit.” A legend near the box promises that all the money collected will be divided among the artists in the show because the SJICA didn’t budget any money for artist fees. On the day I attended, a scattering of ones and a few fives sat unimpressively at the bottom of the box, adding irony to the piece’s tongue-in-check rejection of a show about rejection.

Read article in full at KQED’s site

Opening reception: Thurs., May 21, 6PM – 8PM
Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology
540 West 21st St
New York, NY

Drawing Contemporaries from Michael Mandiberg on Vimeo.

Drawing Contemporaries, curated by Eyebeam senior fellow Michael Mandiberg, is an exhibition of works on paper made by a peer group of new media artists who all make drawings, either as a primary object, or as an experimental step in their process. The artists often use computers or algorithms as a logic structure or drawing aid in a way that is foregrounded in these works. Many of these artists are Eyebeam affiliated, but all are contemporaries whose influences upon each other can be traced in this exhibition.

Darren Kraft uses powdered graphite to photorealistically reproduce icons and logos associated with consumer and political culture; Eyebeam senior fellow Steve Lambert and Julia Schwadron write personal and poetic messages of hope which they leave taped up in public places; Michael Mandiberg uses the laser cutter to etch and carve works on paper that incorporate text, history and design; Marisa Olson performs Google image searches for obsolete technologies, and traces their contours directly off her laptop screen with a mechanical pencil; and Lee Walton creates elaborate indexes of possible graphic marks which are algorithmically used to document events as they occur. His subjects range from from pedestrian traffic to sports games.

On 11 November 2008, a fourteen-page special edition of the New York Times mysteriously appeared on the streets of New York. Its headline, “Iraq War Ends,” introduced a collection of articles under the rubric of “All the News We Hope to Print,” an alteration of the paper of record’s actual motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Among the many organizers of the special edition spoof was Steve Lambert, who sat down with Fillip to discuss the project.

Read the piece at Fillip Magazine

Charlie James Gallery
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012

EVERYTHING YOU WANT, RIGHT NOW! – NEW WORK BY STEVE LAMBERT
APRIL 25 TO JUNE 6, 2009
ARTIST’S RECEPTION APRIL 25, 2009 6 – 9PM

Charlie James Gallery is pleased to announce LA’s first solo show of internationally renowned artist-activist Steve Lambert. You may have encountered Steve’s work already, though you may not be aware of it.  Maybe you saw him interviewed on CNN, or listened to him on NPR.  Lambert’s work operates in popular culture, using everyday language and humor to convey ideas that both subvert and expand the worlds of art, free technology, and media.  In the course of his work, Lambert has worked with volunteers to close every McDonald’s in Manhattan; he has renamed a street in San Francisco, and replaced advertising on the internet with curated art images. Perhaps most famously, Lambert and the Yes Men orchestrated the New York Times Special Edition, wherein he and his collaborators wrote, printed and distributed a near-perfect imitation of the New York Times, its differences detectable only in its content, which included a cavalcade of ‘if only it were true’ headlines like “Iraq War Over” and “Maximum Wage Law Succeeds.”

In Everything You Want, Right Now!, Lambert takes on the vernacular of commercial signage with a regional emphasis unique to Los Angeles.  Visually, he is interested in what makes certain styles of signage feel so innately familiar, and in the methods that signage employs to grab our attention.  Lambert will investigate the numerous emotional promises that inhere in commercial advertising, promises that may excite or reassure us, while remaining ultimately undelivered.  The business of fine art and the relevance of the white cube gallery will also come under the scrutiny of Mr. Lambert.  Under his direction, the Charlie James Gallery will be transformed into something reminiscent of an over-eager appliance store during the 6 week run of his show.  The gallery will be festooned with pennants inside and out, the windows painted over with garish promises of “Slashed Prices!” while the interior pulses away with lighted signage, all promising wild levels of deliverance to the viewer.

Steve Lambert is the founder of the Anti-Advertising Agency and the lead developer of Add-Art (a Firefox add-on that replaces online advertising with curated art images). He has collaborated with numerous artists including the Graffiti Research Lab, Packard Jennings, and the Yes Men.  Steve’s projects and art works have won awards from Lower East Side Print Shop, Rhizome/The New Museum, Turbulence, the Creative Work Fund, Adbusters Media Foundation, the California Arts Council, and others. His work has been shown at various galleries, art spaces, and museums both nationally and internationally, and was recently collected by the Library of Congress. Lambert has appeared live on NPR, the BBC, and CNN, with reportage of his exploits captured in multiple outlets including the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Guardian, Harper’s, The Believer, Good, Dwell, ARTnews, Punk Planet, and Newsweek. He is a Senior Fellow at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York, and teaches at Parsons/The New School and Hunter College. Steve studied sociology and film before receiving a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000 and a MFA at UC Davis in 2006.

About Charlie James Gallery: Charlie James Gallery formed in 2008 in Seattle, WA and had its debut in Chinatown, downtown Los Angeles in November of 2008. The gallery exhibits emerging and mid-career artists confronting issues of contemporary cultural significance.  Housed in a 1947 Chinatown manufacturing building and newly redesigned by Dane Johnson, the gallery is situated amidst numerous other contemporary art galleries of strong reputation.  The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday from 12-6. For more information please visit www.cjamesgallery.com  or email info@cjamesgallery.com.