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British artist gets philosophical

 

Often it takes more than just artistic skill to become a world-renowned artist. After talking with Martin Creed, you might wonder if an artist needs to be philosophical as well. The Briton is a leading conceptual artist. A little younger than the Young British Artists, the 41-year-old's works range from sculptures, paintings, and installations to neon lights, sounds and films. Some Koreans might recognize his work from the "Platform Seoul" exhibition last year, in which he filled a room in Gallery Sun Contemporary with purple balloons, leading excited visitors to wade around the room gleefully. Currently, his most famous and recent works are showing at his first-ever solo exhibition in Korea at Artsonje Center in central Seoul. The 2001 Turner Prize winning artist, however, said that he doesn't really know what appeals to people. "The world is a big crazy place, it's impossible to understand everything. I work for me, so I try to make something I find exciting and beautiful. All works are sort of an experiment to find if it can make our life better and exciting. My way of finding out if my work works for the public is going out in public," said Creed at a recent press conference. So he opens his works to the public, and although he is one of the most famous artists today, not all of his works get the best responses. But they do arouse some interesting debates. An example is the ball of paper he had crumpled and showcased in the middle of one of Artsonje Center's rooms as if it was an autographed baseball. What exactly is the difference between Creed's crumpled piece of paper and the ones by the rest of the world? "There is no difference," he said, coolly. "Like there is no difference between you talking, journalists writing stories or me making my paintings. Everyone's creating something all the time." So why does his become a precious artwork while the rest are just garbage? "I don't know exactly what it means, 'art.' I like putting things on exhibitions, and because that is what artists do, only in that sense I can be called an artist." Most works, though, do not make viewers complain of injustice, but instead, make them admit Creed's keen artistic and even philosophical sensibility. Take his performance "Work No. 673," which was performed on the opening day. Orchestra members were lined up in front of the conductor, and they played a simple piece of music composed by Creed. "There is always a hierarchy in an orchestra. But I think the triangle is just as important as the violin. So the point was to make a piece which every instrument is equal," he said. Similar reasons were applied in a work that features lined-up cactuses, and in his latest work, which shows all the basic ballet positions. He said that he liked all cactuses, regardless of their size, and all ballet positions. Another aim for the orchestra work was to make it able to "see the music." "In concerts you can't really see where the music is coming from. So another idea was to make music visible," he said. A final tip to those who will visit the show: do not bother to peer into the captions beside the exhibits, because most of the works do not have a title. They are simply numbered, randomly. Creed did not want to interfere too much between the works and the viewers by naming the pieces. "The works are just a thing to look at. Ideas are in people, not in works," he said. The exhibition runs through Feb. 12 at Artsonje Center in Hwa-dong, central Seoul. Tickets are 3,000 won for adults and 1,500 won for students. For more information, call (02) 733-8945 or visit www.artsonje.org (claire@heraldm.com) By Park Min-young