Michael Craig-Martin's vividly colored images give new meanings to mundane

Contemporary conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin / Courtesy of UNC

By Park Han-sol

A purple football with green laces, a neon pink pepper mill, a sky blue dress shoe and a bright red screw.

Irish-born artist Michael Craig-Martin's compendium of images marries instantly recognizable everyday objects that have become the face of modern consumer culture with untrue-to-life colors ― a fun mix of bland familiarity with a flavor of "unrealness."

"These are mass-produced, manmade objects. Almost everybody in the world can see (them) and have an idea of what they are. They are universal. They are everywhere," the 80-year-old creator said at the Seoul Arts Center, where some 150 of his paintings, installations, media works and drawings produced over the last five decades are on display at his largest retrospective to date in the world.

"And for me, the color is what makes these general objects specific … In a sense, the color completes the drawing by making each object individual."

"Cassette" (2002) ⓒ Michael Craig-Martin / Courtesy of UNC, Gagosian

Craig-Martin took the British conceptual art scene by storm in the early 1970s with the seminal piece titled "An Oak Tree" ― which is also on view at the exhibition for the first time in Asia.

The work consists of a nearly full glass of water placed on a high shelf, accompanied by his emphatic declaration that the glass is, in fact, a full-grown oak tree. It raises the question of whether the object can be more than what it appears to be beyond its physical limits, testing viewers to see if they are able ― or willing ― to exercise their imagination.

"It's a very absolute work," he said. "It was so absolute that I found it impossible to continue in the same way (after that) because every work I made was less absolute."

While pondering over his next creative step, the artist taught at Goldsmiths College in London in the 1980s, where he became a towering mentor to a group of talented students who came to be known as the Young British Artists ― including Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Gary Hume.

Eventually, he came to the decision that his conceptual masterpiece gave him permission to expand his artistic scope and focus on capturing the imagination of the audience in other mediums as well ― paintings, sculptures and media works.

For example, while the gigantic painting of a turquoise cassette tape seems obvious at first glance, with seemingly nothing else left to explore visually, the artist emphasizes that active imagination never fails to take place within viewers.

"You know what shape it is, you know what the other side is like, you know what size it is, you know what it's made of, you know everything about it. I don't give you any of this information (in my painting). That's your imagination," he noted.

Similarly, it is the viewers themselves who come across his "Las Meninas II" to reimagine the connection between 17th-century Spanish painter Diego Velazquez's classical painting and a seemingly random assortment of brightly colored, everyday items, not the artist. According to Craig-Martin, he gives just 10 percent of visual information, leaving the rest to viewers to fill in the blanks in their heads.

Craig-Marin's hallmark style of depicting ordinary household objects in crisp, exacting outlines awash with strikingly vibrant colors is also, in a way, an archaeological snapshot documenting the present times we live in.

The cassette tape, which is no longer in use, is a visual evidence that refers to a particular period of time.

"Young people have no idea what this is. And many of these images will become unreadable in the future," he said.

And his latest works produced during a series of lockdowns are a testament to the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and our visibly altered world.

He found a number of objects that instantly took on a new level of importance like face masks and laptops, as well as the items he never thought of drawing before.

"Because the only place I could go (during the lockdown) was the supermarket, I became more conscious of vegetables, fruit and flowers, which are objects I never drew. I realized that they are almost manmade, manufactured and domesticated. And we know their names just like we know the (names of) everyday objects."

There are two new flower paintings in this exhibition. But the artist said this is just the beginning. After decades of ceaseless artistic exploration, there is still a lot more left for the 80-year-old to say.

The exhibition, "Michael Craig-Martin," hosted by UNC, runs through Aug. 28 at the Hangaram Art Museum of the Seoul Arts Center.

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