Martin Creed
16 June 2005
ART | BASEL stage
Kunsthalle, Basel
Martin Creed has always written and performed music as part of his work. Publically renowned since winning the UK press 'hot potato' the Turner Prize in 2001, Creed has been making and exhibiting work to much critical acclaim for a decade or so before that. Early music works include 'Work no. 101: For Pianoforte', and 'Work no: 117: All the sounds on a drum machine'. In 1994 Creed formed the three-piece band 'Owada', releasing a debut album in 1997 entitled ‘nothing’. The modesty of the album's title and its frank exposure of its own straight-forwardness, expresses an apparent modesty of ambition for the music, the simplicity of which belies a very astute approach to creating music/artwork. Using very few notes Creed and collaborators rarely resort to superfluous wordage to get across their straight-talking, compelling message. Seeing Creed repetitively singing his economical lyric ‘fuck off’ to the gathered cognoscenti from the art worlds' most moneyed, powerful and important commercial art fair, Art Basel, in the cocktail bar of the Basle Kunsthalle made persuasive sense of this particular (apparently) unambiguous creative outlet.
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Credits
Artist: Martin Creed
Song credits: '1-100' words bt Martin Creed, music by Creed/McEwen/Owada; 'Fuck Off', words and music by Martin Creed
Text: Christabel Stewart
Still images (New York): Darren Flook
Still images and film footage (Basel): Darren Flook and Christabel Stewart
Thanks: Gavin Brown, Martin Creed and James McAyling.
Selected Links
http://www.martincreed.com
http://www.gavinbrown.biz/artists/creedpics/creedpic08.html
