About the Artwork
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.
In Work No. 2814 a tree ‘blossoms’ with plastic bags caught amongst the branches. This accentuates what some might see as a common ‘everyday’ occurrence, until it becomes something more absurd, yet humorous and strangely beautiful at the same time.
Creed approaches art making with humour, anxiety, and experimentation, and with the sensibility of a musician and composer, underpinning everything he does with his open ambiguity about what art is.
Year: 2017
Copyright the artist, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: © Nick Turpin
Material
plastic bags
Artist Biography
Martin Creed
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.
Creed approaches art making with humour, anxiety, and experimentation, and with the sensibility of a musician and composer, underpinning everything he does with his open ambiguity about what art is. His works run the gamut from deadpan, minimalist interventions to rapidly rendered, expressionistic portraits.
Martin Creed is an artist and musician, who was born in Wakefield, England in 1968 and grew up in Glasgow. Today he lives and works in London. In 2001 Creed won the Turner Prize for ‘Work No. 227: The lights going on and off’ and has exhibited extensively worldwide. In 2012 he was commissioned to produce ‘Work No. 1197: All the bells in the country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes’ that heralded the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Recent solo exhibitions and projects include: ‘ARTIST ROOMS Martin Creed’, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, England (2017); ‘SAY CHEESE’ Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands (2017); ‘What You Find’, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, England (2016); ‘The Back Door’, Park Avenue Armory, New York NY (2016); ‘Work No. 2630: UNDERSTANDING’, Public Art Fund, Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York, NY (2016); Hauser & Wirth Zürich (2015); Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn, Germany (2015); Kunstverein Vogelmann, Heilbronn, Germany (2015); ‘Work No. 1562: Half the air in a given space’, THEMUSEUM, Kitchener, Canada (2015); ‘Work No. 360: Half the air in a given space’, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle WA (2015); 'Martin Creed. What's the point of it?', Hayward Gallery, London, England (2014); Hauser & Wirth and Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York NY (2013); The Warhol, Pittsburgh PA (2013); 'Work No. 202', National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, Canada (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL (2012); 'Work No. 1059', The Scotsman Steps, Edinburgh, Scotland (2011); and the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas TX (2011).