Merging art and life, Martin Creed uses ordinary materials and everyday situations to create multimedia works that have confounded and delighted viewers and critics for nearly 30 years. He rejects the term “conceptual” and calls himself an “expressionist,” referring to his notion that all art stems from feeling. His works run the gamut from deadpan, minimalist interventions to rapidly rendered, expressionistic portraits. He approaches art making with humor, anxiety, and experimentation, and with the sensibility of a musician and composer, underpinning everything he does with his open ambiguity about what art is.
Work No. 227
The lights going on and off
2000
5 seconds on / 5 seconds off
Work No. 275
SMALL THINGS
2003
White neon
Work No. 1020
Ballet
2009
Work No. 1197
All The Bells
2012
3 minutes
The artist Martin Creed invited everyone in the UK to ring a bell at 8.12am on 27 July, the day of the Olympics opening ceremony, as part of his London 2012 festival project All the Bells Work No 1197.
Work No. 2630
UNDERSTANDING
2016
Red Neon, Steel
21 3/5 x 50 x 2 1/8 ft / 658.6 x 1524 x 66 cm
Installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York