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Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (pink baby bottle), 2015 Acrylic on aluminum, 23 ⅝ × 23 ⅝ inches (60 × 60 cm)© Michael Craig-Martin, photo by Mike Bruce

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (pink baby bottle), 2015

Acrylic on aluminum, 23 ⅝ × 23 ⅝ inches (60 × 60 cm)
© Michael Craig-Martin, photo by Mike Bruce

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (corkscrew), 2012 Acrylic on aluminum, 48 × 48 inches (122 × 122 cm)© Michael Craig-Martin, photo by Mike Bruce

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (corkscrew), 2012

Acrylic on aluminum, 48 × 48 inches (122 × 122 cm)
© Michael Craig-Martin, photo by Mike Bruce

Michael Craig-Martin Pitchfork (pink), 2008 Powder-coated steel 137 3/4 × 22 inches (350 × 56 cm) Edition of 3 + 1 AP Installation at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, UK Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin Pitchfork (pink), 2008

Powder-coated steel 137 3/4 × 22 inches (350 × 56 cm) Edition of 3 + 1 AP Installation at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, UK Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin, Scissors (Wallpaper-Aqua), 2004 Acrylic on aluminum panel, 32 × 33 inches (81.3 × 83.8 cm)© Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin, Scissors (Wallpaper-Aqua), 2004

Acrylic on aluminum panel, 32 × 33 inches (81.3 × 83.8 cm)
© Michael Craig-Martin

About

I have always thought everything important is right in front of you.
—Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin depicts everyday items with a nuanced simplicity that exposes the tensions between objects and their representation. His work is distinguished by exceptional draftsmanship, vibrant color, and uninflected line; intensely visual, it is rooted in an exploration of the relationships between perception, language, and meaning.

Born in Dublin in 1941, Craig-Martin spent his formative years in the United States, where his family moved in 1946. During the 1960s, he earned a BA and MFA from Yale University School of Art and Architecture, studying alongside Jennifer Bartlett, Brice Marden, and Richard Serra; he also drew inspiration from the legacy of Josef Albers and the rise of Minimalism and Pop art. Craig-Martin returned to the United Kingdom in 1966, and in 1972 he participated in The New Art, a landmark exhibition of Conceptual art at the Hayward Gallery, London. The following year, he produced An Oak Tree (1973), which helped shape the landscape of British Conceptualism. An Oak Tree comprises a glass of water on a shelf and an accompanying text in which the artist explains that, outward appearances notwithstanding, he has changed the humble object into the titular plant. The fascination with semantics revealed by this transformative maneuver has remained a key aspect of Craig-Martin’s practice.

In the later 1970s and 1980s, Craig-Martin shifted his practice from readymade objects to their pictorial images, reimagining the quotidian from an unconventional perspective in wall drawings executed in a range of scales with black crepe paper drafting tape originally designed for electrical circuitry. In these consciously inexpressive, “styleless” images—produced by making precise depictions from life on sheets of clear acetate, then projecting and tracing the results onto gallery walls—he explores an ever-expanding litany of everyday objects, from safety pins to chairs, light bulbs to laptops. While applying effects of layering, intersection, and transparency, the artist renders his subjects, each alone, without shadows or signs of use or aging, as if according to Platonic ideals. These occupy, in his words, “a philosophically defined space somewhere between the particular and the general,” and ultimately function within a wholly original visual and emotional lexicon.

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Fairs, Events & Announcements

Photo: courtesy International Catalogue Raisonné Association

Talk

ICRA Annual Conference 2022
Legacy: The Artist’s View

Thursday, December 1, 2022, 9:30am
Cromwell Place, London
icra.art

The International Catalogue Raisonné Association conference will give artists, their families, and catalogue raisonné authors space to articulate their thoughts on the theme of legacy. Engaging with the question of posterity, the conference asks how a family’s closeness to the artist can be both a blessing and a challenge, and thinks about ways in which later generations as well as nonfamily members can address issues surrounding an artist’s continued relevance. Edmund de Waal will be the keynote speaker and Michael Craig-Martin and Rachel Whiteread will contribute to the conference as well. The in-person and online event will include a question-and-answer session.

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Photo: courtesy International Catalogue Raisonné Association

Left: Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Caroline True. Right: Jan Dalley

In Conversation

FT Weekend Festival 2022
Michael Craig-Martin and Jan Dalley

Saturday, September 3, 2022, 11–11:45am
Kenwood House, London
ftweekend.live.ft.com

As part of this year’s FT Weekend Festival in London, Michael Craig-Martin will be in conversation with Financial Times arts editor Jan Dalley on the Arts Stage to discuss his long career in art, teaching, and writing, as well as his latest projects. A principal figure of British conceptual art, Craig-Martin probes the relationship between objects and images, harnessing the human capacity to imagine absent forms through symbols and pictures.

Gagosian is partnering with the Financial Times to host the Arts Stage at the one-day event where leading experts discuss the arts, music, literature, food, business, and technology. Recent Gagosian Quarterly films will be screened between sessions on the stage throughout the day and Gagosian publications will also be presented.

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Left: Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Caroline True. Right: Jan Dalley

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (November), 2020 (detail) © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.

Art Fair

Zona Maco 2022

February 9–13, 2022, booth B115
Centro Citibanamex, Mexico City
www.zsonamaco.com

Gagosian is pleased to announce its return to Zona Maco México Arte Contemporáneo for the first time since 2018; significantly, this is also the gallery’s first in-person art fair of 2022. Gagosian is presenting a specially curated selection of dynamic paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by iconic figures long associated with the gallery, juxtaposed with works by key contemporary artists. Many of the featured artists are being represented at Zona Maco for the first time.

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (November), 2020 (detail) © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.

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Museum Exhibitions

Michael Craig-Martin, Self-Portrait (Aqua), 2007 © Michael Craig-Martin

Opening Soon

Michael Craig-Martin

September 21–December 10, 2024
Royal Academy of Arts, London
www.royalacademy.org.uk

Michael Craig-Martin is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in the United Kingdom. The show includes highlights from throughout his career, including thought-provoking installations and works that pop with color. Since coming to prominence in the late 1960s, Craig-Martin has moved fluidly between sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, and print. Fusing elements of Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual art, his work transforms everyday objects with bold colors and simple uninflected lines.

Michael Craig-Martin, Self-Portrait (Aqua), 2007 © Michael Craig-Martin

Edmund de Waal, five stone wind (for John Cage), 2023 © Edmund de Waal

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RA Summer Exhibition 2023

June 13–August 20, 2023
Royal Academy of Arts, London
www.royalacademy.org.uk

Held annually since 1769, the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open-submission art show. It brings together art across all mediums—print, painting, film, photography, sculpture, architecture, and more—with some 1,600 works on display, many for the first time. Work by Georg Baselitz, Michael Craig-Martin, and Edmund de Waal is included.

Edmund de Waal, five stone wind (for John Cage), 2023 © Edmund de Waal

Installation view, Michael Craig-Martin: Here and Now, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, April 8–August 28, 2022. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin

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Michael Craig-Martin
Here and Now

April 8–August 28, 2022
Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center
www.sac.or.kr

Here and Now is one of the largest retrospectives to date of work by Michael Craig-Martin. The exhibition features more than one hundred paintings, drawings, prints, and installations from the 1970s to present day, including works made specially for this presentation.

Installation view, Michael Craig-Martin: Here and Now, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, April 8–August 28, 2022. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin

Ellen Gallagher, Untitled, 2000 © Ellen Gallagher

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Icons

May 6–November 14, 2021
Boghossian Foundation, Brussels
www.villaempain.com

From early European and Middle Eastern artifacts to modern and contemporary works, icons have inspired many believers, as well as artists, throughout the ages. This exhibition explores how spiritual dimensions have been incorporated into artworks from antiquity to the present day. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Ellen Gallagher, Douglas Gordon, Duane Hanson, Titus Kaphar, and Andy Warhol is included.

Ellen Gallagher, Untitled, 2000 © Ellen Gallagher

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Press

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