Jim Lambie, a Scottish artist, is best known for his striped vinyl floor pieces, which have covered the floors and stairs of multiple gallery and museum spaces in the United States and Europe. Plaza 's inspiration came from an incident that Lambie witnessed on the streets of Glasgow, Scotland - milk leaking from a hole in the bottom of a red shopping bag, unwittingly carried by a shopper on the way home. The seven shopping bags that compose Plaza hover above the floor at a height similar to where they would be if one were carrying them full of food. The piece becomes abstract as liquid pours out of the bags in stream of color down to the floor. Blurring the line between painting and sculpture, Lambie also blurs the line between everyday reality and art. (AK)

(Born in Airdrie, Scotland, 1964, and lives in New York City, U.S.A. and Glasgow, Scotland)

Plaza

2005
enamel paint and plastic bags
dimension variable
Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Mildred Bork Connors, Elisabeth H. Gates and
Arthur B. Michaels Funds, 2005
©Jim Lambie