Martin Creed - Life and Work

Life and Work

Martin Creed was born in Wakefield, England, and brought up in Glasgow, Scotland. He studied art at the Slade School of Art at University College London from 1986 to 1990.

Since 1987, Creed has numbered each of his works, and most of his titles are deadpan and descriptive. Work No. 79: some Blu-tack kneaded, rolled into a ball and depressed against a wall (1993), for example, is just what it sounds like, as is Work No. 88, a sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball (1994). One of Creed's best known works is Work No. 200, half the air in a given space (1998), which is a room half-filled with balloons.

In 1996, Richard Long and Roger Ackling selected Creed to exhibit at EASTinternational.

Creed is perhaps best known for his submission for the 2001 Turner Prize show at the Tate Gallery, Work No. 227, the lights going on and off, which won that year's prize. The artwork presented was an empty room in which the lights periodically switched on and off (frequency five seconds on/five seconds off). As so often with the Turner Prize, this created a great deal of press attention, most of it questioning whether something as minimalist as this could be considered art at all. His work has often excited controversy: a visitor threw eggs at the walls of Creed's empty room as a protest against the prize, declaring that Creed's presentations were not real art and that "painting is in danger of becoming an extinct skill in this country". Ironically, in recent years Creed has been exhibiting paintings in nearly every exhibition he has done. In the decade since the Turner Prize he has exhibited extensively throughout the world, including large survey shows at Trussardi Foundation, Milan ('I Like Things'), Bard College, New York ('Feelings'), and a touring exhibition which started at Ikon Gallery Birmingham and toured to Hiroshima and Seoul.

Creed formed a band, Owada, in 1994. In 1997, they released their first CD, "Nothing", on David Cunningham's Piano label. Sound has also featured in his gallery-based work, with pieces using doorbells and metronomes. Since 1999 he no longer used the band name "Owada". In 2000, he published a recording of his songs under his own name with the arts publisher Art Metropole, in Toronto. He started his own label, Telephone Records, and released the single "Thinking/ Not Thinking" in early 2011, following it up with the single "Where You Go" in 2012. Releases accelerated in 2012, with the Double AA Side single "Fuck Off" and "Die" coming out on Moshi Moshi Records in May 2012, in advance of the album "Love To You", released on Moshi Moshi in July 2012. The album is produced by David Cunningham, Martin Creed and The Nice NIce Boys (Andrew Knowles of Johnny Marr & The Healers and Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand). A special edition vinyl of the album is being made by Vinyl Factory. Coming out at the same time as the album is the single "You're The One For Me".

Martin Creed and his band were picked by The Cribs as the 'Hottest Band In The World Right Now' on NME.com and they invited him to support them on their recent UK tour. Martin Creed is also much loved by Franz Ferdinand - regular attendees at his gigs and co-producers on his album - as well as Moshi Moshi label-mates Slow Club.

For Creed there is no difference between making music and making art. Like his Work No. 850, in which runners ran through the Tate Gallery, his music is disarmingly simple but makes an immediate impact. Work No. 1197 “All the bells in the country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes” has been commissioned to herald the start of the London Olympics, at 8.12am on 27 July 2012.

In 2010, he provided the cover art for a Futuristic Retro Champions single, while supporting its launch with an appearance with his own band.

In 2009, he wrote and choreographed Work No. 1020, a live performance of Creed's own music, ballet, words and film, originally produced by Sadler's Wells, London and performed in the Lilian Baylis Studio. In 2010, Work No. 1020 was performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the Fringe Festival and was most recently performed on 21 June 2011 in the main theatre at Sadler's Wells, London.

Some of Creed's works use neon signs. In these cases, the title of the work usually indicates what the sign says. These pieces include Work No. 220, Don't Worry (2000) and Work No. 232, the whole world + the work = the whole world (2000), which was mounted on Tate Britain in London.

In 2011, Creed gave work to the UK Registered Charity the Environmental Justice Foundation (1088128). A run of 20 t-shirts was made featuring his Work No. 531, all of which were hand screen printed in London and individually numbered on the inside neck. They are available from the charity.

Creed continues to exhibit work internationally and regularly does talks and plays live with his band.

Creed's visual work is represented by Hauser & Wirth and Gavin Brown's enterprise. His music is published by Novello & Co, part of the Music Sales Group. He works with the record label Moshi Moshi.