WORKS OF THE WEEK I Michael Craig-Martin
Michael Craig-Martin’s major retrospective at the Royal Academy continues until Tuesday 10th December. The show is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of his work ever shown in the UK, showcasing his early conceptual sculpture together with recent vivid colour paintings and sculpture. Something not to miss.
Michael Craig-Martin
Wheelbarrow (red), 2013
Powder-coated steel
255 x 490 x 2 cm
100 ⅜ x 192 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ x ¹³⁄₁₆ in.
Edition 1 of 3 + 1 AP
Michael Craig-Martin has created these un-ordinary depictions of everyday ‘ordinary’ objects in a manner that seems to interrupt the reflexive tendency of our perception of the world around us.
- Michael Bracewell for Michael Craig-Martin at Chatsworth, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, 2014
Clear the autumn leaves with a red wheelbarrow by Michael Craig-Martin.
One of Michael Craig-Martin’s ‘drawings in the sky’, Wheelbarrow (red) induces a tangible experience for the spectator, prompting us to consider contemporary symbols, narratives, and cultural and material histories.
From the beginning, Craig-Martin’s practice has been concerned with the nature of representation within art, exploring this through the rendering of everyday objects. In recent works, they become oversized and surreal, coated in synthetic colour and demarcated with bold linework. These vibrant powder-coated steel sculptures, shown here at Roche Court Sculpture Park, are a form of making that he has been exploring since 2011. An edition of the purple umbrella continues to be permanently sited outdoors at Chatsworth House, following the first exhibition of these works there in 2014.
Michael Craig-Martin
Umbrella (purple), 2013
Powder-coated steel
327 x 310 x 2.1 cm
128 ¾ x 122 ¹⁄₁₆ x ¹³⁄₁₆ in.
Edition 3 of 3 + 1 AP
Michael Craig-Martin
Fountain Pen (turquoise), 2019
Powder-coated steel
400 x 42 x 2 cm
157 ½ x 16 ½ x ¾ in.
Edition 1 of 3 plus 1 AP
Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA (b. 1941 in Dublin, Ireland) attended Fordham University, New York, from 1959 to 1961, then Yale University. He taught at Goldsmiths College School of Art, London, from 1974 to 1988 and from 1994 to 2000, inspiring generations of artists, including the YBAs. Craig-Martin has shown at distinguished institutions worldwide, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria; the Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas; Chatsworth House, England and the Shanghai Himalayas Museum in China. His work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. He lives and works in London.
Sculpture by Michael Craig-Martin in the Round
Watch this film of Michael Craig-Martin's drawings in the sky installed at Roche Court Sculpture Park.