Martin Creed proposes to celebrate the opening and closing of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games by asking Londoners to ring any bell they can find from bicycle bells to church bells as quickly and loudly as possible for three minutes. Creed also proposes to design a new Olympic bell, which can be sounded at the medal ceremonies during 2012 and will be replicated for future Games. The bell would be cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry, famous for casting The Liberty Bell and Big Ben. The work will involve thousands of people, ringing bells on every street corner and welcoming the Olympiad and will be underpinned by an educational programme.
Location: London wide (including the Olympic Park and Whitechapel Bell Foundry)
See the shortlisted entries for this region and read about the judging panel
The composer – Martin Creed
Words and music have always been an integral part of Creed's practice. From the artist’s point of view ‘talks are works and words are work’. Creed has often combined visual art, talking, choreography and music played with his band. The simplicity of the music demonstrates a disarmingly straightforward but intellectual approach. Using few notes and words Creed delivers compelling messages in tracks such as ‘Words’ and ‘Thinking / Not Thinking’. In 2007, Creed showed a composition for an 18-piece orchestra, which sat in a single line according to each instrument’s pitch, at Hauser & Wirth Coppermill in London.
Playing simple chords, waves of sound travelled through the line, creating a minimal yet strong sight and sound. The orchestra played dramatic outbursts led by a thundering bass drum, which sounded much like an external panic attack. In 2008 Calvin Klein invited Creed to recreate the work for the launch of the Spring Collection.
Creed’s own band of musicians performs regularly and he has recently written orchestral pieces for The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Work No.
955, and the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Work No. 994.
Creed is currently working on Work No. 1020 co-commissioned by Sadler's Wells and Frieze Music. This is a new performance which Creed has conceived, composed and choreographed for classically trained dancers. Work No. 1020 will be performed at Sadler’s Wells during Frieze Art Fair 2009. This will be the first time that Creed has created a dance piece.
The artist – Martin Creed
Martin Creed was born in Wakefield, England, in 1968, and from 1986-90 attended the Slade School of Art in London. He lives and works in London. He has exhibited worldwide and his work is featured in many public collections, notably the Tate in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2001 he won the Turner Prize for 'The lights going on and off'. Creed's art is characterised by a gentle but subversive wit and by a minimalism rooted in an instinctive anti-materialism.
His often extremely self-effacing works, all titled by number, have been characterised as 'attempts to short-circuit the visually overloaded, choice saturated culture in which we live'. They also take their place in the honourable tradition within the avant-garde of making work which appears to have no material value - which resists or defies commodification, even if in vain. Hence his conscious use of modest and everyday materials. Whatever the materials, his work is always arresting and can be visually spectacular, as for example his neon works, or what is probably his most celebrated piece, Work No.200 1998, 'half the air in a given space'.
Widely exhibited, this consists of a sufficient number of twelve inch white balloons filled with air to half-fill the gallery space.
A central theme of Creed's work is the relationship art and life and he explores the boundaries in funny, interesting and sometimes unsettling ways. Ultimately, however, Creed seems to want to do what art has always been supposed to do: 'I want to make things. I'm not sure why, but I think it's got something to do with other people. I think I want to try to communicate with other people, because I want to say "hello", because I want to express myself, and because I want to be loved'.