The largest retrospective of Michael Craig-Martin’s work ever to be held in the UK is now open at the Royal Academy of Arts.
A key figure in British art, Michael Craig-Martin (b.1941) is one of the most influential artists and teachers of his generation. Curated in close collaboration with the artist, this exhibition brings together over 120 important works spanning from the 1960s through to the present day, including sculpture, installation, painting and drawing.
Craig-Martin was born in Ireland and studied in America before moving to London in 1966, where he has lived ever since. Fusing elements of pop, minimalism and conceptual art, his work transforms recognisable objects – from household items to mobile devices, famous art works to modernist buildings – with bold colours and simple uninflected lines.
Presented chronologically, the exhibition begins with early pieces in which the artist used found objects such as buckets, milk bottles and mirrors – showing the experimental origins of his practice.
From this, Craig-Martin switched his focus to drawing, creating large-scale wall drawings in tape, executed with the use of projections. Included in this exhibition is Interlocked (MoMA project 1990), 1990 (Courtesy the artist), recreated in situ on the gallery walls.
The exhibition moves on to present a number of the large-scale colourful paintings created by Craig-Martin in the 1990s and for which he is now best known. Also more recent paintings, which show how the artist’s motifs have changed over time.
Reworkings of iconic works from art and design, such as Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) and Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair (1929) feature, and the exhibition concludes with works conceived specifically for the exhibition. One gallery is dedicated to a large-scale, immersive and dynamic digital experience with floor-to-ceiling projected images, while the Central Hall has been transformed into a site-specific, vibrantly coloured installation that engages with the architecture of the space.
Michael Craig-Martin is now open at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. For further information: royalacademy.org.uk
Image: Michael Craig-Martin, Common History: Conference, 1999. Acrylic on aluminium, 274 x 508 cm. Courtesy Gagosian. © Michael Craig-Martin. Image courtesy of Gagosian
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