As part of my Lower East Side Printshop Special Editions Residency, I created this series of silkscreen (and hand altered) prints called, Out of Ideas. This video shows some of the process of how each were made.

If you’re unfamiliar with the world of fine art prints, it’s not a good idea to touch them with your bare hands, wrinkle or kink them in anyway… you get the idea.

Video shot at the Lower East Side Printshop. Doug Bennett was the Master Printer, James Miller did the silkscreening. Video edited while on a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Music except is “Can’t Get Satisfied” by Jack McDuff.

OUT OF IDEAS, 2010
Screenprint and collage with coffee, whiskey, and beer hand additions on torn, crumpled, and burnt Coventry Rag Vellum 320 gsm and Seikosen Mitsumata 32 gsm papers
Dimensions variable; 23″ x 30″ original image and sheet
Edition of 12, with 4 Artist’s Proofs, 2 Printer’s Proofs, 1 Archive Proof, and 1 Display Proof
Master Printer: Doug Bennett and James Miller

printshop.org – Lower East Side Printshop
headlands.org

Steve Lambert
Many artists aspire to be revolutionary, but Steve Lambert is truly original and radical. To begin, it takes more than a few seconds of preemptory scanning of his webpage – the main hub for his action and web-based work – to fully understand what he is about.  Second, his intended audience is much larger than the art world.  Though he possesses traditional degrees in art from respected institutions, he has managed to escape the solipsistic trap that often results from such training to create work that anyone, anywhere, can connect with and understand.   Finally, though the final product is frequently something that cannot be owned or possessed as an investment in a traditional sense, this is not his sole intention or driving concept.  Instead, Steve Lambert has dedicated his career to creating pubic signs, freeware, websites, and publications that will truly cause anyone who is lucky to witness them to stop and think, or to just improve their lives in a simple but meaningful way.

Take for example his freeware Firefox application titled ADD-ART, which replaces all ads on the browser with artwork.  Or his special mock edition of the New York Times (http://nytimes-se.com), which unlike its sarcastic relation The Onion, envisions a truly guileless and utopian alternate reality in which all public universities are free and Condoleezza Rice holds a press conference to frankly confess that the Bush Administration knew all along that there were no WMDs.

Lambert brought this spirit of enjoyable subversion to his residency at the Printshop with a series of three prints that challenge basic ideas behind ownership of art.  He was guided by one of two (or a combination of both) of the following self-determined principles.  First, he wanted people who buy the work to have to come to terms with the fact that “you can’t get a perfect one.”  This concept sprang from Lambert’s interest in Buddhist ideas, specifically, that one must accept things as they are, because that is how they should be.  OUT OF IDEAS is a screenprint in Lambert’s signature brushwork lettering style (downloadable on Lambert’s website) and each impression is either torn in two, splashed with coffee, or both, depending on the artist’s whim.   Likewise, each impression of the variable edition screenprint This is Perfect is uniquely off register.  No two are alike, but also – none are perfect.   Lambert’s choice of palette for this print was inspired by the color scheme for a palace he visited during a trip to Turkey with a friend, who noticed that one of its tiles had a mistake in the pattern.  They later learned that this was intentional and all Islamic art incorporates a flaw, as Muslims believe that nothing can be perfect but Allah.

Lambert was also interested in overturning the expectation that a collector can buy his work and simply look at it.  This was the guiding principle for In BLANK days… , an interactive print that requires the owner to fill in the chalkboard-painted blanks.  Depending on the choice of words, the resulting statement can become a directive/goal, a means of stress release, or a source of humor.  “If you own the work, you have to do something.  It’s not just…I own it, and that’s the end. “

I’m Not Ready
3′x30″ banner, sumi ink on paper

This was set up in my studio at the Headlands Center for the Arts during my 2010 Bridge Residency.

Installation shots at Barbara Seiler Gallery

Steve Lambert presents a live classroom-style video lecture exploring passages of historical inquiry through clips found on YouTube.  This presentation will be one of a series of thematic lectures comprising “The YouTube School of Social Politics,” a project conceived by Headlands Alumni Artist In Residence Sam Gould.  The lecture, entitled “Judo Practice”, explores creative activism, leveraging balance and the precise application of force to overcome a more powerful opponent.  Please Be Advised: This presentation contains mature and controversial content.

Headlands Center for the Arts
Open House Summer 2010
12-5pm

Summer Open House
Sunday July 11, Noon – 5PM
Headlands campus | Mess Hall Café Open | FREE Admission
Open House provides a once-in-a-season opportunity to interact with Headlands’ Summer 2010 AIRs, Affiliates, and Graduate Fellows. View works-in-progress in artists’ studios, witness performances and readings, and explore Headlands’ campus situated in a National Park.

Artists in Residence
Katie Faulkner, Dance / Choreography, California
Jeffrey Gibson, Painting, New York
Kevin Haworth, Writing, Ohio
Kühne / Klein, Visual, Switzerland
Steve Lambert, Interdisciplinary, New York
Richard Maloy, Visual, New Zealand
Farid Matuk, Writing, Texas
Mariele Neudecker, Installation, United Kingdom
Brooke Singer, Photography, New York
Allison Smith, Interdisciplinary, California
Ola Ståhl & Kajsa Thelin, Interdisciplinary, Sweden
Hadi Tabatabai, Visual, California

2010 – 2011 Graduate Fellows
Miguel Arzabe, Interdisciplinary, University of California, Berkeley
Johanna Barron, Visual, University of California, Davis
Luke Damiani, Sculpture, San Francisco Art Institute
Chris Fraser, Installation, Mills College
Jamil Hellu, Photography, Stanford University
Josef Jacques, Photography, California College of the Arts
Scott Polach, Photography / Mixed Media, San Francisco Art Institute

Tournesol Award, 2010 – 2011
Jack Leamy, Painting

Affiliate Artists, 2010
Sarah Barsness, Visual
Leo Bersamina, Visual
Colette Campbell-Jones, Visual
Christy Chan, Visual
Tyrone Davies, Visual
Christopher Gray, Visual
Robin Johnston, Visual
Julie Lara Kahn, Visual
Pawel Kruk, Film / Video
Helen Lee, Visual
Tucker Nichols, Visual
Megan Pruiett, Writing
Kristina Quinones, Painter
Sarah Rosenthal, Writing
Kimberly Rowe, Painter
James Sansing, Visual
Joshua Short, Visual
Wayne Smith, Visual / Music
Michele Theberge, Visual

Staff
Holly Blake, Painting

Buy your Just Art 2010 tickets for the June 24 event here before they sell out!

via Tinca Art – Home.

Group show Palling Around with Socialists questions the nature of an individual as an autonomous being or as a component to an equitable community.

“Our nation presently finds itself in a culture war, where language is traversing outside the bounds of denoted definitions: words like socialist, fascism, czar and terror are volleyed around public debates,” the gallery said in a statement about the exhibit.

“While different parties and groups fear a loss of personal freedoms, we may be at greater risk of misarticulating the perceived conflicts with which we are faced.”

Concerns about the nature of private property, authorship and current intersections between economics, ethics and philosophy are raised by artists Shinsuke Aso, Gabriel Boyce and Preston Link, Alton Falcone, David Horvitz, Justin Kemp, Steve Kemple, Julia Schwadron and Steve Lambert.

Through June 26. Noon-4 p.m. Saturdays. U·turn Art Space 2159 Central Ave., Brighton. West End. E-mail: u.turn.artspace@gmail.com

Via Cincinatti.com

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
21 June 2010 – 26 September 2010

EMMA GRAY: HollywoodMerchmART!
Curator Emma Gray will transform LACE’s storefront space into an artist-created souvenir shop. HollywoodMerchmART! aims to engage, confuse, and delight summer tourists on Hollywood Boulevard with works by both local and international artists. Ranging from postcards and maps to t-shirt and mini-sculptures, the store inventory draws inspiration from social-media and internet trends, as well as local objects found in nearby souvenir shops, thus speaking the language that is Hollywood. Prices will range from $1 to $200!

Participating artists: Emily Joyce, Ashley McPeek, Collective Field, Richard Lidinsky, Brian Bress, Carolina Caycedo, Matthieu Laurette, Anthony James, Max Maslansky, Micol Hebron, PLUS the LA Vajazzlers, Kathryn Garcia, Kirsten Stoltman, John Kilduff, John Knuth, Steve Lambert, John Bucklin, and Zoe Crosher.

In a brave attempt to multitask outside HollywoodMerchmART! John Kilduff of Letspainttv.com will jog on his treadmill on the Walk of Fame, while performing various mundane and creative activities (from eating chicken and blending drinks to painting portraits) for a modest fee. Kilduff will be performing on various occasions throughout the summer.