Zero Tolerance Magazine • View topic - Martin Creed @ IKON Gallery, Bimingham
 

Author Message

<  Non-music  ~  Martin Creed @ IKON Gallery, Bimingham

PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:33 am Reply with quote
User avatarZero ToleranceZero ToleranceJoined: Sun Jul 09, 2006 7:18 pmPosts: 6315Location: Landscape XX
On Tuesday I went to the IKON in Brindley Place to see my favoritest of favorite artists Martin Creed. If only I knew for what I was letting myself in for.

Drawn in by the mysterious sound of people being sick I headed for the 1st floor of the exhibition, whereupon I got the shock of life. Projected on the left wall in a large B&W closeup was a looped video of a penis going in and out of a vagina. You have to respect Mr. Creed for tackling subjects he has often admitted he finds difficult, rather than just doing it for pure shock value alone. I found myself wondering wether I should gaze in abject awe and terror at this carnal vision or look at the rooms only other piece, Work 88 (a screwed up ball of paper) and pretend it wasn't there.
Eventually I managed to stumble wide-eyed and shellshocked upon the source of puking symphony. 4 TV screens displayed in a square shape on which showed a film of 4 guests in the artist studio vomiting on the floor. The big lass on the top left corner screen had a particularly violent and lengthy outburst, bringing forth buckets of red chunky spew. Feeling a little bit nauseated by this I went on into the next sunlit room where a small group of cactuses had been arranged in height and on the adjacent wall long black stripes of various length. Obviously it seems organization and progression (I mean the simple act of up/down, left/right, as opposed to any other metaphorical meanig of the word) is very important to Mr. Creed. Sort of like OCD for conceptual sensationalist art.

The 2nd floor was luckily puke and penis free yet I still managed to make a tit of myself. After 'viewing' the lightbulb piece in the tower room (a lightbulb that simply turned on and off) I was headed for the main exhibition when I walked into a piece of art thinking it was a door. I found out a second later it was a door, that opened a closed itself continuously.
The noisiness associated with Mr. Creed's art was still here. One piece was simply a set of metronomes placed on the floor by the galleries main window. They all ticked away at different speeds creating a cacophany of mechanical sound. I thought these metronomes linked well with Mr. Creed's musical output that tends to consist of minute long songs with 1-3 words as the lyrics, blatantly aping new wave rock bands in style. More of his obsessive size organization was here including wooden planks of various width and length, and a man sized pile of leathery bean bags.
Another television piece (just 2 TV's this time) had videos of boats preparing to leave port and correspondingly having just arrived in port. You never see either either boat sail away. They have been made static. The only movement present is people like the sailors and dock workers unloading or loading the ships.
In a similiar and more grandiose vein is a large projected video without any narrative or plot of a large and small dog wandering aimlessly in and out of shot, as well as the occasional assistant apparently chasing after them. Like the boat piece Mr. Creed seems to obsessively loop time - to displace it. Its as though he is too shy to make sweeping gestures with clearly defined beginnings and ends. He is nervous about his work and has said in the past he worries about his ideas, wondering if he should go ahead with them or not.

So long as I can view it free more power to him I say!



_________________
Image
Offline Profile

Display posts from previous:  Sort by:

All times are UTC [ DST ]
Page 1 of 1
1 post
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests
Post new topic  Reply to topic
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum
cron