Ska’s Not Dead 2001

Ska’s Not Dead consists of a record deck encrusted with bright purple glitter, which is affixed on its side to the gallery wall so that the turntable faces up, and a worn leather glove that dangles from the base of the deck by a knotted piece of wire. Four lines of interlocking safety pins, attached to the glove’s four fingers, are threaded with enamel beads in green, yellow, blue and red, which add weight, texture and colour to the pendulum-like appendage. The sculpture belongs to a series of works made by the Scottish artist Jim Lambie between 1999 and 2001 that comprise turntables dusted, or sometimes caked in glitter from which various fashion accessories are suspended (see, for example, Let It Bleed 2001, British Council Collection, http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/collection/artists/lambie-jim-1964/object/let-it-bleed-lambie-2001-p7450, accessed 12 June 2014). The title of the work, along with the record deck, makes reference to ska, a form of Jamaican popular dance music that was adopted by British bands in the 1970s.