Jim Lambie at Sadie Coles

Jim Lambie’s taped floor paintings have always struck me as a modern interpretation of Tibetan sand painting. Modern both in the sense of 60’s Modernism, and also as a paradoxical reflection of our contemporary society. He “paints” with mundane, disposable tape, and through a sort of obsessive work process, makes it into something extraordinary, and beautiful and highly crafted. Then people walk all over it, the show comes to an end, and the time-intensive installation is most likely ripped up and thrown away. His work is about beauty, process, and the strange new decay we experience so very recently in history–the slow decay of plastic. He currently has a solo show at Sadie Coles in London.