In recent years Creed has worked on music, dance, writing, sculpture and painting: pieces ranging from compositions for symphony orchestra and music for elevators to architectural commissions, public monuments and dance and performances which combine classical ballet with talk, music, film and animation.
Creed's work is all-encompassing and seems to seek both to reassure and to confound expectations: 'Trying to do what you want to do, trying to be free and trying not to do what other people want you to do. If you can do that, it's amazing'.
Creed was born in Wakefield, England in 1968 and grew up in Glasgow. He lives and works in London and Alicudi, Italy. He has exhibited extensively worldwide, and in 2001 won the Turner Prize for 'The lights going on and off'. Creed's 'Work No. 700' is on view until January 2011 at Hauser & Wirth Outdoor Sculpture, London in collaboration with St James's Church, Piccadilly. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include 'Down Over Up', Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2010); 'Ballet Work No. 1020', Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (2010); 'Things', The Common Guild, Glasgow (2010); 'Work No. 409', Royal Festival Hall, London (2010); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima (2009); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2008) and the Duveen Commission,Tate Britain, London (2008).
The single 'Thinking/Not Thinking' is available digitally from 24 January 2011 on Telephone Records, Creed's own label. A limited edition, CD/DVD and signed photographic artwork will be released on 28 February 2011. Audio produced by David Cunningham, video directed by Martin Creed.
'Martin Creed: Works', a comprehensive survey of Creed's art featuring more than 700 works, a foreword by the artist and essays by Germaine Greer, Matthew Higgs, Barry Humphries and others, is published by Thames & Hudson.
