Untitled(shoe), 2009, acrylic on aluminum, 182.9x152.4cm; Artist Michael Craig-Martin; Untitled(chair), 2009, acrylic on aluminum, 182.9x152.4cm. ⓒ The Artist, Courtesy of PKM Trinity Gallery

Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin (born in 1941), or the first-generation artist of British Conceptual Art, was once described by thetimes.com as “A God of Small and Ordinary Things.” The artist’s solo exhibition has been held at PKM Trinity Gallery from February 26 through March 31. At this exhibition, he introduces to the audience some of his recent works: about 20 flat paintings and a large-scale wall painting as high as 15 meters.  Sae-mi Kim

“My work is simple and sophisticated at the same time….My picture of our society is that the things that unite us, at a very simple level, are the ordinary things we make to survive.”

Michael Craig-Martin has always researched into and examined ‘how to create a sense of the world’ and ‘the relationship between things and their living spaces.’ The artist turns such plain and familiar mass-produced items found in ordinary life as chairs, lighting bulbs, footwear, and coffee pots into special and attractive objects by using several simple lines and pure primary colors. The results are familiar but strange canvases. When he tries to recognize the identity of a thing, he feels that the minimal elements required have already been determined. Although their variations could be changed into objects of diverse forms, he thinks that such variations are limited. Thus, he says that this chair cannot be more chair-like than that chair. So, he depicts the objects in such a way as things are described in children’s picture books or coloring books.
The things he selects are those things not regarded special or valuable by people. They have always been mass-produced and can be found everywhere. However, he thinks that each of those things contains its own romance. Such romanticism is maximized through colors. When we work on colors using the computer, we basically combine 8 colors to create diverse colors. These primary 8 colors are felt to be ordinary like chairs or footwear. Even in colors, he pays attention to the minimum basic elements. He deploys an orange-colored chair, a blue or green fire extinguisher or a purple lighting bulb on the plane of such intense colors as magenta, green, turquoise blue and red: The background colors are as sharp as the colors of the objects. His intention is to strike a unique contrast or harmony between background and foreground. Thus, his works make the relationship between them and their spectators ‘instantly readable,’ while providing the spectator with an opportunity for an instant visual experience and a retrospect on men’s cognitive abilities and issue of interpretation.
His works focus on the concept of things rather than the things themselves, while encouraging the audience to participate in forming the meanings of the works. In this sense, his works are reminiscent of the linkage among pop art, minimalism and conceptual art. In the 1970’s, he put up a glass cup a shelf. It was titled ‘Oak Tree,’ which signalled a turning point for British conceptual art. Since the 1990’s, he has concentrated his efforts on flat works, and therefore, the audience facing his works of primary colors are tempted to call him a pop artist. But if we look carefully into the concept penetrating his life-long works, we can see that he is a conceptual artist. When he saw Warhol’s works borrowing the images from such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe, it is said that he questioned himself, ‘What would be an image more familiar than Monroe?’ He thought it important that Warhol did not deform or re-create Monroe’s image but suggested it clearly to everybody. He explains, “Chairs and tables are simple, and international images and such ordinary things must represent the world we live in. Hence, just as Warhol suggested Monroe, I suggest footwear and chairs.”
The artist’s suggestion seems to be important in that it intends to invent the way how the audience recognize the objects and that it induces them to recognize them in a certain direction. His methods for suggestion have been site-specific sometimes and colorful at other times. The combination of lines and colors shown in Martin's works does not represent the actual things. Chairs or mobile phones depicted are not only found at his studio. Although the artist might have been inspired by the things he owned or saw, the images represent diverse types of the things. Like representative chair or footwear, the things belonging to the same categories are depicted with the common information about them or their attributes abstracted. Accordingly, the things described in his works do not connote certain information that may well refer to some unique objects. There is hidden a subtle paradox. All of them look like the things we use, but they are actually not. Any mobile phone is not the same as Martin’s mobile phone, but they are same, too. For that reason, his works are not still life but conceptual art works.
These images represent our thoughts about things (not the things themselves but our tools of recognition for classification and identification of the things.) His works induce the spectators to construct their meanings positively. His images of the things not connoting certain information allow for the infinite interpretations as much as permitted by their categories, and in this way, his chairs, footwear and coffee pots help individual spectators to reflect on their experiences of the things as if they were some framed moulds. Hence, a relationship between an image and its self-interpreted meaning is formed. While we relate to his works, we renew our relationships with the ordinary things represented by his works.
The artist exposes his inner world to the people. Since he demonstrates his ability to a maximum degree, he can change people’s mind, which makes him special. What is important not only to artists but also to everybody is a passionate start. He says, “If you should be a tennis player, your competence would not absolutely be improved even though you are under the most excellent coach, unless you make every possible effort for yourself. Nobody cannot play tennis on behalf of you. Who should play tennis is just you.”

Michael Craig-Martin was born in Dublin in 1941 and educated in the United States. He studied at Yale University. He returned to Europe in the mid-1960s, becoming one of the key figures in the first generation of British conceptual artists.  He was a professor at Goldsmith’s College from 1974-1988 and 1994-2000, and a significant influence on the emerging British artists. He has recent retrospectives at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2006) and Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2006), and has permanent large-scale installations at Regents Place, London and The Laban Center, Greenwich, a collaboration with architects Herzog and DeMeuron.