Carolina Grau /Curator 

Martin Creed: Works (Obras) 

“Work No. 247 Half the air in a given space comes from the same work process as Work No. 227 The Lights Going On and Off, the work with which Martin Creed won the Turner Prize in 2001, in which the lights of a given space were switched on and off at established regular intervals. Creed has described this work as an attempt to produce a sculpture in the manner of a piece of music, in which ‘the work makes itself in front of you as you watch it’ [Martin Creed, interviewed by Tom Eccles, Martin Creed. Works, 2010, p. XV]

Revealing the work process has been a constant in Creed’s work since the start of his artistic career. On completing his studies at the Slade School of Art, he began composing music and songs as a way of making the process more visible: ‘A song is a process, from the moment before the music starts until the moment after it ends’ [Martin Creed, interviewed by Jérôme Sans, ‘Blow and Suck’, Live, Palais de Tokyo / Éditions Cercle d’Art, 2004, p.76]

Since then, music and sound have played an integral part of the artist’s work, but there are differences between the two. The sound pieces possess an open structure, without beginning or end. The MARCO exhibition includes a sound installation, Work No. 189 Thirty-nine metronomes beating time, one at every speed, which consists of just this: 39 metronomes all ticking at once, each set at one of the 39 tempos, or speeds, permitted. By definition an instrument of precision, the metronomes thus create a cacophony alongside the action of these 39 objects, lined up like ballerinas, all moving their arms at different rhythms. In the words of Massimiliano Gioni, the metronome serves as an essential metaphor of Creed’s work: ‘sound, negation of sound, repetition of sound. Sound, silence, sound, silence…’ [Massimiliano Gioni, ‘The System of Objects’, in Martin Creed. Works, 2010, p. XX].

A characteristic of Creed’s works is that they can be executed infinitely and repeatedly like a musical score, and, like the latter, each interpretation is different to the last. Many of his works are executed according to the artist’s precise instructions, like Work No. 117. All the sounds on a drum machine and Work, 1995, No. 194. Nothing, 1995-1996, a song in which only this word can be heard repeated again and again. In one of the galleries on the first floor, the exhibition shows works and documentation relative to the artist’s various explorations in the field of sound works, songs and music scores, reflecting the varied nature of Creed’s work and his facet as musician and songwriter.