Martin Creed Plays Chicago

Jan

Work No. 845 (THINGS)—the first artwork by Martin Creed to be installed at MCA Chicago this year—makes a simple statement using one ordinary word. (THINGS) sets the tone for Creed's subsequent interventions, which will appear throughout the building and the city each month of 2012 as part of the artist's residency.

Feb

In the double-stacked video installation Work No. 405: Ships Coming In, the documentation of a ship leaving and returning to port offers visual manifestation of a cliché about waiting and anticipation.

Mar

The nine cardboard boxes in Work No. 916 are stacked on top of each other from largest to smallest to form a tower. The brand markings on the boxes indicate their original contents—various purchases ranging from a television to bottled water.

Apr

Creed's paintings, whether they fill a small canvas or, as with Work No. 798 and Work No. 1349, a monumental wall, are often the result of predetermined logic or a few simple rules. The two large-scale paintings that cover the walls in the MCA's lobby—one of them conceived specifically for this site—each comprise a repeating pattern in a single bold color.

May

In Work No. 1355, twelve nails of varying sizes extrude from the wall, evenly spaced in a line. Basic building materials like these nails are not usually visible, in keeping with their purpose, but in this work the nails appear half-exposed, progressing from largest to smallest.

Jun

Work No. 792 is built from everyday materials—a set of widely available toy Lego blocks—and is strongly keeping with Creed's interest in formal structure. Here at the MCA, the sculpture acts as an homage to the skyscraper, a symbol of modern development and a notable presence in Chicago's skyline.

Jul

Creed's paintings are often the result of predetermined logic or a few simple rules. Like the paintings that cover the walls in the MCA's Kovler Atrium lobby around the corner, Work No. 1351 in Puck's café is the result of a basic pattern and a playful but systematic use of color.

Aug

This large neon sculpture by Martin Creed continues MCA Chicago's commitment to blurring the lines between the inside and outside of the museum. Creed often uses language in his work, spelling out unassuming words or common phrases. As the word mothers spins above the MCA Plaza, it becomes a glowing presence that is both celebratory and imposing. The sculpture has to be large, Creed says, “because mothers always have to be bigger than you are” and because “it feels like mothers are the most important people in the world.”

This work is jointly presented as the MCA Chicago Plaza Project for 2012.

Sep

For this site-specific installation, Creed fills half the space of a room with balloons, giving tangible form to something that’s usually invisible: the air around you. This lively artwork is meant to be enjoyed as you walk through it and not just viewed from outside. In Chicago, the artist has installed four versions of this work in different neighborhoods throughout the city, choosing a different color balloon for each site to give the installations their own feeling.

Oct

In his works Martin Creed often uses ordinary objects, arranging them in eye-catching yet rigorous ways. Work No. 960 is a straight line of thirteen cacti from different species. Each plant is incrementally taller than the last, with the largest one rising above your head.

Work No. 190 was previously realized in a private home, where a crumpled paper ball appeared in each and every room. Reappearing at the MCA in every room that is open to the public, these paper balls play with notions of art as a valuable object and subtly disrupt the usual order of the space.

Nov

• Work No. 1020 (Ballet), 2009
• Theater show including ballet, talk, and music

Shown in performance at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, UK, 2011

Fortified with a generous sense of humor, Martin Creed reevaluates the status of art in this virtuosic mash up of music and movement. For this performance, his first ballet, Creed plays lead guitar with his London-based band, joined by dancers from the original Sadler’s Wells production. Creed’s challenge—to compose a work using only the five core positions of classical ballet, each paired with a musical note—creates the conditions for a intriguing collision of structure and spontaneity.

Additionally, Creed produced eight small canvases, on view in the MCA lobby and café, while leading a painting workshop with students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These works result from a series of exercises, which included using chance operations, painting portraits without looking at the canvas, and establishing certain procedures to play with structure and color.

Dec

Martin Creed is as interested in sound and music as he is in visual art. Both a sculptural installation and a source of sound, Work No. 189 consists of 39 metronomes set to a different tempo or speed, one for every setting the device offers. Assembled like a chorus, the metronomes produces a percussive piece of music while also marking out time. As the final work in the artist's residency project, this group of objects counts down the remaining moments of Creed's presence in the museum.