MARTIN CREED
Wakefield, United Kingdom, 1968
Director of Fundación Botín Art Workshop in 2019

Work No. 2696, 2016
Emulsion and mirror on wall
Dimensions variable
Acquired in 2020

Martin Creed likes to think of his exhibitions as an experience in space and time; thus, his intervention sets out to disrupt the hierarchy that usually prevails in an art institution, where it is supposed that one focuses one’s attention exclusively on the artworks and not so much on the context — the architecture, the lighting and so on.

His wall paintings generate a shift in the perception of the room where they are being shown, somehow transforming it into a stage set. They also blend references to Arts & Crafts — a late-nineteenth century British movement that sought to re-establish the importance of decorative arts — and to Minimal artists such as Sol LeWitt, whose Wall Drawings endeavored to stablish a new dynamic between the artwork and the space it occupies.

The execution of Creed’s wall pieces obeys strict rules: materials (in this instance, paint and mirror) cannot cover more than 50% of the wall surface; the paint needs to be applied using a roller or brush, which determines the width of the stripes; and in this case, not one stripe can be the same color shade as another.