Steve Lambert

For Steve Lambert, art is a bridge that connects uncommon, idealistic, or even radical ideas with everyday life. He wants his art to be relevant to those outside the gallery–say, at the nearest bus stop–to reach them in ways that are engaging and fun. He intends what he does to be funny, but at the core of each piece there is also a solemn critique. It’s important to be able to laugh while actively questioning the various power structures at work in our daily lives. Lambert has the unabashedly optimistic belief that art changes the way people look at the world. That belief fuels his pragmatic approach to bring about those changes.

Lambert made international news after the 2008 US election with The New York Times Special Edition, a replica of the “paper of record” announcing the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other good news. He has collaborated with groups from the Yes Men to the Graffiti Research Lab and Greenpeace. He is also the founder of the Center for Artistic Activism, the Anti-Advertising Agency, and Add-Art (a Firefox add-on that replaces online advertising with art) and SelfControl (which blocks grownups from distracting websites so they can get work done).

Lambert’s projects and art works have won awards from Prix Ars Electronica, Rhizome/The New Museum, the Creative Work Fund, Adbusters Media Foundation, the California Arts Council, and others. He has had solo exhibitions at San Diego Museum of Art, SPACES in Cleveland, Legion Arts in Cedar Rapids, and McBean Project Space at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work was featured at the 2008 Whitney Biennial and has been included in group exhibitions at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York, Portland Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, DOX Center for Contemporary Art in Prague, among others.

Courtesy of Charlie James Gallery