Martin Creed

Hauser & Wirth are delighted to announce a major solo exhibition by Martin Creed. The show will feature an extensive selection of new work, including monumental wood and metal sculptures, film, paintings and a composition for chamber orchestra which will premiere on the opening night. Martin Creed's work is known for its elemental directness, economy of means and friendly, deadpan absurdity. ‘My world is a soup of thoughts, feelings and things all mixed up together. Working is a way of trying to cope, to separate the soup and escape; to get from the inside out.’ Creed forms pared-down exaggerations, expressionistic gestures distilled and refined to an extreme point. Rigorous geometry and rhythmic structures create frameworks within which things can move freely and change. Work No. 329, in which half the volume of the exhibition space is filled with balloons, is a kind of ultimate sculpture, constantly in flux, which takes the shape of the space it is in and the people interacting with it. Exhilarating and unpredictable, it is typical of Creed's hard-edged, soft-hearted minimalism. For Martin Creed art is ‘always a background to people; colours and shapes brought alive in their use by people’. Creed was born in Wakefield, England in 1968, and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. He lives and works in London and Alicudi, Italy. He has exhibited extensively worldwide, and in 2001 won the Tate's Turner Prize for ‘The lights going on and off’. This last year has seen him touring with his ‘Variety Show’, a theatrical production which combines words, music and dance — most recently showing in New York with the Public Art Fund. His first film, ‘Sick Film’, was premiered last October in London. He is currently working on an architectural project for the London Library. Following Coppermill Creed has a solo survey show at the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in New York, opening Saturday 7 July, and a solo show at Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin beginning 5 October. In addition, Creed is working on an extensive publication that will present a survey of his oeuvre. Reproducing every one of his works, and with comprehensive essays by Germaine Greer and Massimiliano Gioni, Martin Creed Complete Works 1986—2007 will be published by STEIDL Hauser & Wirth. Creed performs regularly with his band. Martin Creed is the last of three exhibitions held at Coppermill, Hauser & Wirth’s East End space. The exhibition follows from Christoph Büchel’s Simply Botiful, October 11 2006 – March 18 2007, and Dieter Roth / Martin Kippenberger, May 26 – August 27 2006.