Distance comes our way

The era is long gone when public art museums dominated the presentation of world art to us in NZ. There are now many other players competing in this game. Gow Langsford Gallery, as just one example, has a long history of showing significant artists in considerable depth over years. We thought of this commitment yesterday as we waded through hundreds of white balloons in the Martin Creed piece Work number 2497: Half the air in a given space. Although these balloons were large and white, it is a version of the memorable pink balloon Work number 329 exhibited at Michael Lett on K-Road way back in 2004. 

Indeed the reason we were so familiar with most of the works in Creed’s survey exhibition The Back Door at the Park Avenue Armory in New York city (the famous venue that first showed Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain in 1913) was because he has shown regularly in New Zealand. We even had the opportunity to talk with Martin Creed once when he was in Christchurch to make an installation for Scape in 2006. As we have related before (but hopefully so long ago that no one will remember) we had just purchased his Work number 312: a lamp going on and off. All you receive when you purchase Work 312 is a certificate giving you the right to buy a lamp and have it turn on and off, and when we met Martin we had still to buy a lamp to do the job. We asked him if he’d be interested in having a photograph of our lamp once we had selected it. His reply, ‘that’s very kind of you, but I’m really only interested in the light going on and off.’ Genius.

Images: Martin Creed piece Work number 2497: Half the air in a given space at the Park Avenue Armory in New York city

Turned on

Martin Creed lights up the Christchurch Art Gallery

Sweet 16

How much would it cost to have the Christchurch Art Gallery move half a meter to the left or to the right and back again without damaging itself or the art inside? The answer is about $20 million and involves something that sounds like Foucault on speed: the installation of 138 pendulums under the ground to counteract the movement and hopefully muffle it. All that has taken time but the Gallery announced it would finally open before Christmas with work already being put into the galleries. A few days ago (in what must feel like the tenth or so re-run of a bad joke for Director Jenny Harper and her staff) the opening looks like it has been delayed again. Everything is on track for the main project apparently but tasks that have been left over from normal maintenance are still to be completed. So now it looks as though the opening will happen sometime within ‘the first three months of next year.’ 

In the meantime Harper has been dropping hints. ‘We’re looking to present an important Martin Creed at our Foundation dinner in September!’ You’ll remember Auckland Art Gallery had a brief flutter with Creed trying for one of his large revolving MOTHER works in the foyer. Based on its experience over the past few years ChCh might find SONOFABITCH more appropriate. Although there's no news on the specific ChCh work yet maybe CAG will go with the idea of their previous curator Justin Paton who suggested a couple of years ago on the gallery blog ‘Everything is going to be alright’.

Driving down the North Island...

...thinking about Martin Creed

Thinking about...

... Martin Creed at Michael Lett

In the Quai Branly

Thinking about Martin Creed (again) 

Image: Ivory figure in costume defecating. 16th C. French

The chair is the same but not as this is

One of our very early posts (number 43 for OTN statisticians) back in 2006 was about a visit we made to search out ex National Art Gallery curator Gary Sangster. At the time he was running Headlands, an artists residency just out of San Francisco. When we made it out there our attention was caught by the dining room that had been ‘arranged’ by the American artist Anne Hamilton. She had selected an eclectic assortment of chairs, cutlery, crockery and kitchen utensils from locals and artists who’d been at Headlands to fit out the area. 

Yesterday we saw this idea taken to its logical and hilarious conclusion by Martin Creed in the restaurant Sketch in London. Creed has ensured that there isn’t a single object in the room that is the same as any other. Every glass, fork, table, napkin, vase, plate is different. The effect is surprisingly cozy, Martin Kippenberger meets high tea. 

Images: table arrangements at Sketch

Hell’s bells

Martin Creed is planning a major performance for the opening of the London 2012 Olympics. He is creating Work No. 1197: All the Bells in a Country Rung as Quickly and as Loudly as Possible for Three Minutes. It is set to happen at 8 am on 27 July. Creed is asking everyone with access to a bell (bicycle bells, doorbells, church bells etc.) to join in. The Central Council of Bell Ringers, who one imagines are always on for something a little different (#irony), will not be playing. You can catch some of Martin Creed's work on show at Michael Lett in Auckland until 12 May.

Other OTN stories on Martin Creed:

Work Number 88

Run

Another sighting

Scape garden

Squatters

Olympic Posters

At Lett

Lookalike

Run