As part of The Hayward Gallery’s Wide Open School Martin Creed will host an evening (tonight) in which he plans to be ‘doing some talking, playing songs, bringing some new dance numbers to the floor, and entertaining questions from the audience’.
Anyone at all familiar with Martin’s work will know this will not be any ordinary evening, although you could argue it is anything but as he goes around looking for things to react to in his work and by doing so moves the everyday meaningless into significance…he said something once that sums up the drive behind his work really well:
‘most work comes from feeling bad and wanting to feel better, life’s hard, and so anything that carries a little escape from that or an excitement or pleasure or is beautiful helps a little bit’.
Of course, not all of his work is considered beautiful (Work # 610…look it up) but it’s certainly escapist…Martin says that his art is concerned with ‘nothing in particular’. Using real objects – doorbells, metronomes, ceramic tiles and items of furniture – and materials such as masking tape, elastoplast, Blu-tack and balloons, he transforms apparently meaningless details into significant matter. By focusing on the insignificant, his interventions seem to shift our attention to the invisible structures which shape our experiences. Everything he makes, from interventional objects to writing, songs and interviews, is assigned a work number – for example, his 2001 Turner Prize-winning intervention is Work # 227: The lights going on and off.
Music plays an important part in Creed’s life and art. He formed his own band in 1994, and in 2009, he wrote and choreographed Work # 1020, a live performance of his own music, with ballet, words and film. He has recently created an orchestral piece for the London Sinfonietta, and has devised Work # 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes for the launch of the 2012 Olympic Games. He also has a new album out on Moshi Moshi Records on July 2nd. Short (40 minutes) sharp, funny and touching…from the venemous FUCK OFF to the heartfelt title track LOVE TO YOU.
So if you fancy an evening that promises to be entertaining and different then head on down to the Hayward Gallery tonight!
DETAILS :
Thursday 21st June 7.00pm
Price: £10
Concessions: 50% off limited availability
Venue: Purcell Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Tickets and Full details here
Talking to Field Day Radio
FDR-Martin Creed for Soundcloud by Field Day Festival
About Wide Open School
The Hayward Gallery’s Wide Open School is an unusual experiment in learning. Its programme of classes is devised and delivered by over 100 artists from approximately 40 different countries. It is not an art school however. Instead it is a wide-ranging forum where artists lead and facilitate workshops, collaborative projects, collective discussions, lectures and performances about any and all subjects in which they are passionately interested.
That is a territory as expansive as the imaginations of artists, who this summer help to transform Southbank Centre into an international learning site for Festival of the World, showing how art changes lives.