Matt Lambert: Fun & Games

  MATT LAMBERT

Main Gallery
Friday, April 27 – Friday, June 8, 2018

Dual opening reception Friday, April 27  5:30 – 8 p.m with Eli Gfell: /X
The Artist Talks: Eli Gfell, 7:00 p.m. in the Euclid Avenue Gallery
The Artist Talks: Matt Lambert will give his talk at the closing party

Closing party for Lambert and Gfell exhibitions Friday, June 8 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
The Artists Talks: Matt Lambert in the Main Gallery, 7:00 p.m.

Artist Statement
Matt Lambert’s work pushes the preconceptions and possibilities of jewelry and adornment as traditionally understood. Adornment has the ability to blur the fields of design, craft, fashion, and art—and through inhabiting queer and/or liminal spaces adornment has great strength. Lambert believes that this aspect has yet to be fully explored as a terroristic act towards Westernized institutions.

FUN & GAMES is a continuation of Lambert’s research with the Thick Collection based in the Swedish Royal Armory Archive (Livrustkammaren) in Stockholm Sweden. This particular collection of texts is an international collection of texts and journals of “masculine activities” from the 1500s to early 1900s demonstrating rules and mappings of how masculine bodies should move through space and interact with objects. Lambert uses this as a starting point and begins to queer the archive and question the boundaries of participation within sport, war, fashion, craft, and appropriation.

Based in Detroit, Lambert holds an MFA in metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art with additional specific university training in craft skills, such as metalsmithing, ceramic, and fiber. Through apprenticeships Lambert has also studied semi-antique rug restoration and leather working. Lambert holds academic training in art history, psychology/human sexuality, and cultural studies from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

Lambert’s work has been collected internationally and shown at venues including: Swedish Center for Architecture and Design (Stockholm, Sweden); Kunstnerforbundet (Oslo, Norway); the Craft Council of British Columbia Gallery (Vancouver, Canada); Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern (Munich, Germany); the Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and the Queer Culture Center (San Francisco, California). In 2017-2018 Lambert was the first international artist based in jewelry/metalsmithing to be invited as a resident at IASPIS the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s programme for visual artists and designers in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lambert was recently selected to be the front artist for Athens Jewelry Week in Greece this year “for his exceptional talent to produce conceptual pieces of jewelry, and for his interdisciplinary action.” AJW continued to iterate, “[h]e does not hesitate to cross boundaries and combine his art with photography, performance and choreography.” In anticipation of this Greek exhibition he participated in this extensive interview that deals with many of the themes present in his objects on view at The Sculpture Center. He will be moving most of his Sculpture Center exhibition to the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece after his installation here closes.  Lambert also has an exhibition opening in Germany in March. You can visit that website here.

Visit Lambert’s own website here.

The artist thanks the following people for their unstinting contributions to this new body of
work:

Carolyn Catlos
Fiber artist

Brandon Michael Hrusovsky
Model

Andy Jackson
Photographer Assistant

Jacob Koestler (@american_spirit)
Photographer

Petr Kurecka (@petr_kurecka)
Petrkurecka.cz
Photographer

Phil Lambert
Installation expert

Kristina Sheufelt (@ksheufelt)
Kristinasheufelt.com
Sculptor

Adam Thomas with The Juice Box Studio (@thejuiceboxstudio)
Thejuicebox.co
Glass artist

Martin Talaga (@martin.talaga)
Choreographer and dancer

Edina Trsic
Model

Irene LaVon Walker (@irenelavonwalker)
Irenelavonwalker.com
Fiber artist