William Lamson

2014 – US & Canada Competition
Creative Arts – Fine Arts

William Lamson is an interdisciplinary artist whose diverse practice involves working with elemental forces to create durational performative actions. Set in landscapes as varied as New York’s East River and Chile’s Atacama Desert, his projects reveal the invisible systems and forces at play within these sites. In some works he is the subject, directly performing in front of the camera, such as his 2010 video and sculpture project A Line Describing The Sun. In this immersive two-channel video installation, Lamson follows the path of the sun across a dry lakebed in the Mojave Desert with a Fresnel lens, melting the earth into black glass. Over the course of a day, a 366-foot hemispherical arc is imprinted into the lakebed floor. In other projects, he works through the materials to create a platform in which an experiment or an experience will occur. In 2012, he was commissioned by Storm King Art Center to make Solarium, a colorized glass house consisting of 162 panels made of caramelized sugar cooked to different temperatures and then sealed between two panes of window glass. The space functions as both an experimental greenhouse, growing three species of miniature citrus trees, and a meditative environment that viewers can enter. In all of his projects, Lamson’s work represents a performative gesture, a collaboration with forces outside of his control to explore systems of knowledge and belief.

Lamson’s work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, including at the Brooklyn Musuem, Moscow Biennial, P.S.1. MOMA, Kunsthalle Erfurt, Musuem of Contemporary Art, Denver, and Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles. In addition he has produced site-specific installations for the Indianapolis Musuem of Art, the Center For Land Use Interpretation, and Storm King Art Center. His work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Indianapolis Musuem of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and a number of private collections. He has been awarded grants from the Shifting Foundation and the Experimental Television Center, and is a MacDowell Fellow. His work has appeared in ArtForum, Frieze, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New Yorker, Harpers, and Village Voice.

William Lamson was born Arlington, Virginia, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his M.F.A. from Bard College, and he teaches in the M.F.A photography program of Parsons The New School for Design. He is represented by Anita Beckers Gallery in Frankfurt, and Pierogi in Brooklyn.