Martin Creed (born 1968) is an English artist noted for his works which hark back to the conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s.
Creed was born in Wakefield and brought up in Glasgow. He studied art at the Slade School of Art in University College, London from 1986 to 1990.
Since 1987, Creed has numbered each of his works, and most of his titles relate in a very direct way to the piece's substance. Work No. 79, some Blu-tack kneaded, rolled into a ball and depressed against a wall (1993), for example, is just what it sounds like, as is Work No. 88, a sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball (1994). One of Creed's best known works is Work No. 200, half the air in a given space (1998), which is a room with enough inflated balloons in it for them to contain half the air in it.
Perhaps Creed's best known piece among the general public is the work he exhibited for the 2001 Turner Prize show at the Tate Gallery, Work No. 227, the lights going on and off. This was an empty room in which the lights periodically switched on and off. As so often with the Turner Prize, this created a great deal of press attention, most of it questioning whether something as minimalist as this could be considered art at all. Creed won the prize.
Creed formed a band, Owada, in 1994. In 1997 they released their first CD, Nothing, on David Cunningham's Piano label. Here too there is a very direct relation between the song titles and the work itself: in songs like "1-2-3-4" the entire lyrics are contained in the title. Sound has also featured in his gallery-based work, with pieces using doorbells and metronomes.
Some of Creed's works use neon signs. In these cases, the title of the work indicates what the sign says. These pieces include Work No. 220, Don't Worry (2000); Work No. 225, Everything Is Going To Be Alright (2000), which was mounted to the side of a gallery Gavin Brown, New York City; and Work No. 232, the whole world + the work = the whole world (2000), which was mounted on Tate Britain in London.
The difficulty of making art works
Whilst Creed's work can seem abstract and conceptual, in interviews the artist reveals a sensitive, thoughtful side and an artistic ambition continually confounded by a deep insecurity about what to make and whether it is worthwhile. In a rare interview published in the book Art Now: Interviews with Modern Artists (2002), Creed explains that he used to 'make paintings' but never liked having to decide what to paint. He decided to stop making paintings and instead to think about what it meant, and why he wanted to make things. He says:
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The only thing I feel like I know is that I want to make things. Other than that, I feel like I don’t know. So the problem is in trying to make something without knowing what I want. [...] I think it’s all to do with wanting to communicate. I mean, I think I want to make things because I want to communicate with people, because I want to be loved, because I want to express myself. |
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Creed says that he makes art works not as part of an academic exploration of 'conceptual' art, but rather from a wish to connect with people, 'wanting to communicate and wanting to say hello'. The work is therefore primarily emotional :
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To me it’s emotional. Aye. To me that’s the starting point. I mean, I do it because I want to make something. I think that’s a desire, you know, or a need. I think that I recognise that I want to make something, and so I try to make something. But then you get to thinking about it and that’s where the problems start because you can’t help thinking about it, wondering whether it’s good or bad. But to me it’s emotional more than anything else. |
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Creed's work is often a small intervention in the world, making use of existing materials or situations rather than bringing new material into the world. This is not so much to do with minimalism and is more likely to be influenced by the environmental movement: Creed feels that there is enough 'stuff' in the world already and he is not sure he should be adding to it.
