As a child living two years abroad in England, Jeff Lambson remembers well the first time his mother took him across the English Channel for a visit to the Louvre. "It was overwhelming," he said.

Years later, Lambson also recalled watching a father and son turn the corner on a historical exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., only to be confronted by an abstract painting drenched in red. "What is this?" Lambson remembers the son asking his father. Without reply, the father took his son's hand and they left the painting in peace. "To get people excited and talking about art -- that's a challenge," Lambson said.

Holding those two opposing responses forever in his mind -- his own and the art-going public's -- that's the goal Lambson savors now that he's the first full-time curator of contemporary art at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art.

It would be hard to argue that anyone would be better equipped for the task, as Lambson's background suggests: born in Utah, raised in St. Louis, armed with a master's degree in art history from Brigham Young University, and with six years' experience working at the esteemed Hirshhorn Museum, where he watched thousands walk by works of art that either vexed or enchanted them.

Within months of starting the job in November 2007, Lambson co-curated a collection that would build an educational foundation for his love of contemporary art and works created by living artists. He wasted no time milking his East Coast contacts. D.C.-based artist Dan Steinhilber flew in to Provo to fill museum walls with conceptual works crafted out of consumer items and products ranging from duck-sauce packets and restaurant take-home containers to fluorescent light bulbs. In October 2008, famed modernist art critic and historian Michael Fried presented a lecture at Lambson's invitation.

As he worked to expand the museum's national reach, Lambson also worked to increase its in-state cachet. He's written critical essays for artists who've exhibited works at Provo's Sego Art Center, and collaborated with Salt Lake City's 337 Project to host a traveling art truck.

"Jeff to us is a breath of fresh air," said Campbell Gray, museum director. "He puts energy in a museum that doesn't exist any other way, and we're feeling it. His activity rate is through the roof."

The chaos and mischief of contemporary art may seem anathema to the staid student body of a university whose name is nearly synonymous with a conservative religious culture. Lambson aims to turn that expectation upside down, albeit politely, with every exhibit.

"Most important for me is that people talk about art -- period. For most people, art is gone when they walk out of the museum," he said. "There are a lot of young, married people here. Are they all thinking? I'm sure a lot of them are, but we want them to take stock."

His dress and demeanor speak volumes. Donning two-tone Doc Marten shoes, suspenders and a felt corduroy jacket, Lambson announces himself at once, then disarms you with colloquial ease. Colleagues at the Smithsonian tagged him "the redneck art historian." If much of contemporary art is about putting people on edge, Lambson's approach is to help ease them on the way.

If curating can be reduced to a formula, Lambson's is one part tension mixed with equal parts relaxation, similar to the caffeine kick of the energy drink Red Bull. Walking through the Steinhilber exhibit, he expounds on each piece as if they were old friends. "I'll bring art in here that I like, but still attempt to be democratic about it," he said, adding, "We're not putting up art just so people will like it."

He loathes art that confronts for the sake of confrontation, preferring instead works that form, re-form and resonate in the mind. It's a leaning that reflects his evolution and appreciation of art -- gained in his 33 years of living. "It took me years to come to a definition of what I think art is," he said. "It's simply a language that can express emotions and ideas in ways the spoken word cannot."

Lambson and his wife, Ann, moved to Washington, D.C., in 2001, while both finished master's degrees in art history from BYU (Lambson in 2006, his wife in 2002). Looking for work, Lambson was promised only a two-week stint at the Hirshhorn. Administrators there found his drive so infectious he rose to the position of assistant to the director after three years. Between positions, he worked in the museum's library, where he read every brochure, pamphlet and news release on living artists he could get hold of. It was an invaluable education, as the art world moves so fast that few books are written on rising artistic stars. "I had the art world at my fingertips," he said. "I loved it."

At BYU, on tap for next year is a show under the working title of "Mirror, Mirror," an exhibit set to explore the social epidemic of networking through computer sites and cell phones in the age of MySpace and texting.

Much like Steinhilber's vast canvas of duck-sauce packets, it's sure to explore one of Lambson's favorite themes: the perspective of what appears from a distance, as opposed to what's really there. "There's some tension there," he said. "People see this and know it's not quite right."