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haha, i know.
- MARTIN CREED
If you think conceptual art is wank then Martin Creed has very hairy palms. He won the Turner Prize a few years ago with an installation called "The lights going on and off" which was an empty room with the lights going on and off. After laying low for a while, Martin Creed is back with two new shows, one of which opens tonight and involves Sonic Youth and David Cunningham. We met up with the artist for a quick chat.
Is it exciting to be back on the art scene again? You kind of went away for a while.
I can’t really ever get away from myself, I’ve always been here. But it’s nice to talk a lot about work and I quite like to do interviews and stuff like that. I consider doing that to be just as much work making the actual art.
Do you find when you talk about it you start to realise different things about the art.
Absolutely. If work is produced in a magazine, I consider that to be another piece of work in itself. And I like that I learn something about it every time. Like it is one thing to have a sculpture. And then to see a photo of it in a book becomes something else. I guess it’s the way that the work gets used by the people. That’s the work working. And it’s always different. So what I’m saying is I guess that talking about work is work itself. I don’t think its possible to talk about anything but yourself, you know.
Do you get sick of talking about yourself?
Sometimes yeah I do. I sometimes get sick of myself and think I’m a bit of a wanker. I do. Everyone is the centre of their own world.
When was the last time you were actually sick.
The last time was quite recently. I was on a plane coming back to London from New York. I woke up, having fallen asleep and suddenly felt really sick. I looked around and grabbed the first thing I saw because I couldn’t find a sick bag, so I grabbed a plastic bag. So I was vomiting into this bag, and I remember distinctly thinking how familiar the sound was. I remember thinking “I know this sound, god this is what it feels like”. It somewhat demystified that role that had been played for my art.
What did you do with the bag?
Well I just had to hold onto it for ages, and I suddenly realised that it had holes in the bottom of the bag so it started dripping all over my legs. Yeah it was pretty gross.
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