MARTIN CREED
Work No. 562
2006
Felt-tip pen and highlighter on paper, 12 parts
29.7 x 21 cm (each)

Turner Prize winner Martin Creed was born in 1968 in Wakefield, England. From the age of three he lived in Glasgow, Scotland. Between 1986 and 1990 he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. After art school he lived and worked in London until 2001, when he moved to Alicudi, Italy. He currently lives and works in London and Alicudi. British art critic Jonathan Jones said that, “Creed is a social artist; the true magic of his work lies in the way it interacts with people and places.”

By identifying his works primarily through a numbering system, Creed accords them equal status, regardless of size or material. He has said “I find that it’s difficult to choose, to decide that one thing’s more important than the other … So, what I try and do is to choose without having to make decisions.” His idiosyncratic approach is born out of this refusal to make decisions and a playful concern with the conundrum of wanting both to make something and nothing: “the problem was to attempt to establish, amongst other things, what material something could be, what shape something could be, what size something could be, how something could be constructed, how something could be situated … how many of something there could be, or should be, if any, if at all.”, the artist says. Creed’s interrogation of his own motives reveals an anxiety about “making something extra for the world.”

Martin Creed is known for his manageable works based on everyday materials. A room half-filled with balloons, a single sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball, a group of metronomes, or a large piece of furniture partially blocking a doorway. With precision and subtle wit, the artist explores the properties and functions of his materials. In an unmistakable way, Martin Creed’s works celebrate a dry yet playful connection between artistic expression and everyday life. Time and again, he draws on materials from our daily reality and creates an order—sometimes absurd—for the chaos of the world.

Martin Creed understands his works as things. Things that are what they are and thus allow the viewer a moment of joy, insight or calm. In order not to overload the works with additional layers of sensory meaning, Creed does not give them conventional titles; instead, since 1987 he has assigned them a kind of catalogue number, because: “All numbers are equal.” But not only numbers—colours, too, are of equal importance to Creed. The twelve sheets of the work ‘Work No. 562’ are completely coloured in using commercially available felt-tip pens and highlighters, though with differing strokes and styles. The coloured A4 sheets may be hung in any arrangement, although the linear sequence must be maintained.

For his work ‘Work No. 227: The lights are going on and off’, Martin Creed received the prestigious Turner Prize in 2001.