Michael craig martin biography sample
Works Exhibited
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 eve
Michael Craig-Martin
Michael Craig-Martin is an artist and former teacher at Goldsmiths. He was awarded an honorary fellowship in 2001.
Michael Craig-Martin is an influential conceptual artist and painter, instrumental in fostering the Young British Artists movement. Craig-Martin is a former teacher at Goldsmiths and was awarded an honorary fellowship in 2001. In 2016 he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to art.
You first came to Britain in the 1960s. Was it normal at the time to be teaching as well as making your work?
I came to England in 1966 when I was barely 26. I left Yale in June and I was teaching in September. Within a year, I had been introduced to almost every artist I had ever heard of in England – Patrick Caulfield, Bridget Riley, Richard Hamilton and Howard Hodgkin. Then I got a gallery and I had my first show in 1969. It did not seem surprising to me that I would teach and work: first of all, because it gave one a comparatively decent income, and, secondly, because it kept one in the business. In 1973, I came to teach at Goldsmiths and it was extraordinary. At the time the school had a terrible reputation for being anarchic, so my friends commiserated with me for the nightmare that I was stepping into. But Jon Thompson [then Head of Art] was totally passionate about teaching and about art education. Our idea was to completely renew the idea of art education, which was very much Jon’s agenda. We were going to re-invent British art education.
Did it begin right away to draw in interesting students or did it take a bit of time to build up? "What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because, of course, art is about sharing: you wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience." MADE IN BRITAIN II Patrick Caulfield, Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport, Peter Doig, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Patrick Hughes, Julian Opie PATRICK CAULFIELD MICHAEL CRAIG-MARTIN IAN DAVENPORT PETER DOIG RICHARD HAMILTON DAVID HOCKNEY PATRICK HUGHES JULIAN OPIE 28. Richard Hamilton (London 1922 - 2011 Henley-on-Thames, London) "I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas" Farbsiebdruck auf Lichtdruck mit Collage 1971 75 x 100 cm Abb. 50,8 x 76,1 cm sign. num. Auflage 165 Exemplare Lullin 082 [24270] We cordially invite you and your friends to our opening The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue (104 pages and more than 90 images (price Euro 10). The exhibition will be accompanied by a digital catalogue - you have the possibility to leaf through the cataloque (PDF) virtually here. 54. Julian Opie (geb. 1958 in London) "This is Shahnoza in 3 parts. 09" dreiteiliges Objekt (schwarzer Samt/Stoff auf weißer Acrylplatte) 2008 121 x 115 cm x 3,8 cm sign. num. Auflage 30 Exemplare [17609] Press release (German). 1. Patrick Caulfield (London 1936 - 2005 London) "Some Poems of Jules Laforgue" Edition C - englische Ausgabe Buch und vollständige Serie von 22 breitrandigen Farbsiebdrucken 1973 61 x 56 cm sign. num. dat. bez. bet. Auflage 120 Exemplare Cristea 38 a - v [23909] .
The funny thing is the year I arrived, there were some of the most interesting students I’d ever had. Jon was interested in the wayward students – the difficult, stroppy, slightly crazy people. We were interested in art that wasn’t just defined by painting or sculpture in the traditional sense. There were students doing performance, film or video, writing, install Michael Craig-Martin
David Hockney23.01.–16.03.2019
on Wednesday, the 23rd of January 2019, at 6:30 p.m.MADE IN BRITAIN II
Everything is arranged simply and legibly, full of the complex interaction between reality and illusion. The pictures grasp the essence of things and figures in their simplest form and yet remain unsuitable for making simple statements about our present