Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Yorkshire-born Turner Prize-winner to give free public talk
Martin’s talk will take place at the University’s city centre Rose Bowl building, from 5.30-7pm, as part of the School of Art, Architecture and Design’s INSIDE/OUT lecture series. Places are free and can be booked here.
Martin was born in 1968 in Wakefield, before moving to Glasgow, Scotland, aged three. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1986 until 1990. After moving to Alicudi, Italy in 2001, Martin now lives and works in London.
Martin’s work, which has often caused controversy, has been numbered since 1987 and accompanied by a descriptive title: for example, Work No. 88, a sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball. He was the winner of the 2001 Turner Prize for his submission, Work No. 227: The lights going on and off; and Work No.1197, All the bells in the country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes was commissioned to herald the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Bells were rung at 8.12am on the first day of the Olympic Olympiad at the Houses of Parliament, Millennium Square in Bristol, St Albans Cathedral, Waverley Station in Edinburgh, and at hundreds of churches and community centres across the UK.
Simon Morris, Professor of Art at Leeds Beckett University, said: “We are thrilled at Leeds Beckett University to be welcoming Martin Creed, one of the world’s most significant contemporary artists, to deliver a talk for the prestigious INSIDE/OUT lecture series. Having won our country’s leading contemporary art prize, the Turner Prize, in 2001, Martin Creed continues to make work that challenges us to reconsider the very nature of art.
“Not only am I thrilled that our students will have the opportunity to hear him speak in person, but I am very pleased myself as a collector of his work, the proud owner of work No. 88, from 1995, a piece of paper crumpled into a ball. Creed takes a flat two-dimensional piece of paper and turns it into a three-dimensional object, making a simple but brilliant artwork from the most minimal of sculptural gestures. Whether he is crumpling or tearing up paper, playing the same note repeatedly on his electric guitar, telling us not to worry, or filling half the space in a given space with balloons, I know he will not disappoint. This is an excellent opportunity for our students to engage with a major international artist at the top of his game.”
Martin’s current exhibitions can be viewed at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston, England, and the Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, Netherlands. His exhibition in Preston includes Work No. 203: Everything is going to be alright: a temporary, 13-metre-long neon sign, emblazoned across the front of the museum’s Grade 1 listed exterior. As a musician, he also has a new single, Blow and Suck, out now. his latest album, Thoughts Lined Up, was released in July 2016. In 2011, Martin established his own record label, Telephone Records.
Other upcoming speakers confirmed as part of the INSIDE/OUT lecture series include: New York artist Erica Baum, on Thursday 9 March; and Amsterdam-based French artist Laurence Aëgerter, on Thursday 30 March. For more information and to book onto any event in the series, please visit the INSIDE/OUT page.