Martin Creed

Martin Creed

Martin Creed is a British artist and musician born in Wakefield and brought up in Glasgow. He studies art at the Slade School of Art, University College London, from 1986 to 1990. Since 1987, he numbers his works rather than giving them conventional titles, and many of them describe exactly what the piece is or does.

Visual art

Creed wins the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227, the lights going on and off, an empty room where the lights switch on and off at intervals. The piece attracts significant press attention and debate over whether something so minimal can count as art. He also makes works using simple objects and actions, including Work No. 79, some Blu-tack kneaded, rolled into a ball and pressed against a wall, and Work No. 88, a crumpled sheet of A4 paper.

Another well-known work is Work No. 200, half the air in a given space, a room filled with enough inflated balloons to contain half the air in it. His neon works include Work No. 220, Don’t Worry, Work No. 225, Everything Is Going To Be Alright, mounted on the side of a gallery in New York City, and Work No. 232, the whole world + the work = the whole world, mounted on Tate Britain in London. Sound also appears in his gallery-based work, including pieces using doorbells and metronomes.

Music

Creed forms the band Owada in 1994. The group releases its first CD, Nothing, on David Cunningham’s Piano label in 1997. The songs also follow Creed’s direct naming approach, with titles such as “1-2-3-4” containing the full lyrics.