Art
Michael Craig-Martin exhibition
November 2007: in review
In his own words Craig-Martin describes his unmistakeable style as ‘decocting what representation actually is, dissecting what underlies a representational picture.’ But for someone widely credited with nurturing the first generation of British conceptual artists, his work is instantly accessible.
Click here to see a gallery of the artist’s new work.
Familiar, everyday objects – a scythe, a glass of water, a book, a chair – are plucked from a database on his computer and arranged in different combinations and colours. ‘I always intended to use them as obvious things surrounding us that are so ordinary and familiar that we don’t even notice them and don’t value them,’ explains Craig-Martin. ‘They’re totally ubiquitous and hence I use them as a pictorial language. I don’t have a consumer interest in them, nor a design interest. The precise point I’m making is that they are the simplest objects we make and hence they tell us most about ourselves.’
In his latest exhibition, ‘A for Umbrella’ at London’s Britannia Street Gagosian Gallery, the artist has for the first time combined text with the familiar collection of objects. The juxtaposition is both pleasing and slightly disarming. Each picture is familiar in that it evokes a page from a child’s first alphabet book and the shape of each letter fits comfortably with the shape of the object it superimposes. But the image bears no connection beyond shape to its matched letter.
‘I chose images randomly and purely on the basis of what looked best with each letter,’ said Craig-Martin. ‘The only letter that worked by coincidence was D, which suited the drawer but I wanted to develop a double vocabulary, between the borders of pictures and letters, abstractions and images.’
As well as these new works the artist will be showing a series of computer monitor works, including two self-portraits and a giant triptych covering the entrance hall.
Click here to read our exclusive interview with Michael Craig-Martin.
INFORMATION
- Website
- http://www.michaelcraig-martin.com
- Telephone
- 44.20 7841 9960
- Address
- Gagosian Gallery
6-24 Britannia Street
London WC1X 9JD
