Events
Public Installation
Michael Craig-Martin
June 14–August 31, 2021
Taikoo Park, Hong Kong
www.taikooplace.com
Michael Craig-Martin’s powder-coated steel sculptures depicting everyday objects are on display at Taikoo Park, Hong Kong. The forms have an instant sensory, intellectual, and emotional impact, evoking the tangible experiences of daily life while speaking to the symbolic potency the represented objects hold. This installation, organized by Swire Properties, celebrates the company’s commitment to art and culture.
Michael Craig-Martin’s installation at Taikoo Park, Hong Kong, 2021. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: courtesy Taikoo Place and Swire Properties
Public Installation
Michael Craig-Martin
May 19–June 9, 2021
Pacific Place, Hong Kong
pacificplace.com.hk
Michael Craig-Martin’s powder-coated steel sculptures and his brightly colored flags depicting everyday objects are on display at Pacific Place, Hong Kong. The forms have an instant sensory, intellectual, and emotional impact; evoking the tangible experiences of day-to-day life while speaking to the symbolic potency the represented objects hold. This installation is part of Swire Properties Arts Month, in partnership with Art Basel Hong Kong, and celebrates the company’s commitment to art and culture.
Michael Craig-Martin’s installation at Pacific Place, Hong Kong, 2021. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin
Public Installation
W1 Curates
Michael Craig-Martin
June 29–July 12, 2020
Flannels, London
www.w1curates.com
Michael Craig-Martin has created a new digital work viewable around the clock on a three-story building on Oxford Street in London, presented by W1 Curates. The artist describes his work Cornucopia Galactica as “a celebration, a dynamic cornucopia, a galaxy of these great wonders of nature, constantly moving, turning, spinning through an intensely colored space like planets, satellites, and spaceships.” W1 Curates aims to bring art to the people by using state-of-the-art technology to transform the exterior of the Flannels London flagship store into a digital exhibition space.
Michael Craig-Martin, Cornucopia Galactica, 2020, installation view, Flannels, London © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: courtesy W1 Curates
Talk
In Focus
Michael Craig-Martin, Man Ray, Giuseppe Penone
Thursday, July 30, 2020, 12pm edt
Join Gagosian for a trio of online presentations to learn about the ways Michael Craig-Martin, Man Ray, and Giuseppe Penone approach three-dimensional form and its potential to change the way we engage with the world. Craig-Martin will speak about his own practice, while Max Teicher and Pepi Marchetti Franchi will each discuss the works of Man Ray and Penone respectively. To join, register at zoom.us.
Installation view, Michael Craig-Martin: Sculpture, Gagosian, Britannia Street, London, May 31–August 23, 2019. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Mike Bruce
In Conversation
Michael Craig-Martin
Emilie Gordenker
Saturday, October 5, 2019, 12pm
Regent’s Park, London
frieze.com
In conjunction with the retrospective display of his drawings at Frieze Masters, Michael Craig-Martin will be in conversation with Dr. Emilie Gordenker, director of the Mauritshuis at the Hague, Netherlands. The pair will discuss Craig-Martin’s work, with particular emphasis on the long-standing centrality of drawing in his practice, as well as the artist’s experience of the changing character of art and the art world over the past fifty years. To attend the free event, register at the Frieze Masters auditorium desk the day of the talk.
Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (group I), 2017 © Michael Craig-Martin
Talk
Bauhaus and Beyond?
On Art School Models, Old and New
Friday, October 4, 2019, 2pm
Regent’s Park, London
frieze.com
As part of the Frieze Masters Talks program, Michael Craig-Martin, alongside Kimathi Donkor, Donna Lynas, and Ute Meta Bauer, will discuss how the Bauhaus remains relevant to art education today. The conversation will be moderated by Sam Thorne. To attend the free event, register at the Frieze Masters auditorium desk the day of the talk.
Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Caroline True
Announcements
Permanent Installation
Michael Craig-Martin
Fountain Pen
Michael Craig-Martin’s Fountain Pen (2019) has been installed outside the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, England. The sculpture is a vivid magenta in color and balances strikingly on the single point of the pen’s nib. Commissioned by the Blavatnik School of Government to celebrate the university’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, the work alludes to the research and learning carried out in Oxford, as well as to the signing of important documents.
Michael Craig-Martin with his sculpture Fountain Pen (2019), Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, England. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Matt Alexander/PA Wire
Support
Artists Support: London
Michael Craig-Martin
Michael Craig-Martin is participating in the first iteration of Artists Support: London, launching June 17, 2021. Craig-Martin will donate 100 percent of the proceeds from the sale of his artwork Untitled (steering wheel fragment) (2016) to Centrepoint, the United Kingdom’s leading charity dedicated to fighting youth homelessness. The work will be available through November 20, 2021. Artists Support is a nonprofit initiative powered by artists, who donate a work for sale whose proceeds directly support a local charity of their choice. For more information, visit artists-support.com.
Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (steering wheel fragment), 2016 © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Mike Bruce
Design
Michael Craig-Martin
Thank You Health Workers Poster
Michael Craig-Martin has created a poster for people to customize and share to show support for health workers around the world. Originally conceived for the BBC Arts’s Culture in Quarantine program to thank National Health Service workers in the United Kingdom, the artist decided to make this international version to thank frontline health care workers around the world. The printable poster template can be downloaded, customized, and shared in windows or digitally.
Post your finished design on Instagram using #GagosianChallenge by May 11. Craig-Martin will be selecting his favorites to repost on Gagosian’s Instagram.
Download the poster in color (pdf) or black and white (pdf)
Michael Craig-Martin’s poster thanking health workers around the world, 2020
Commission
Michael Craig-Martin
Bloomberg, London
www.bloomberg.com
Michael Craig-Martin has created the site-specific work Lexicon (2017) for Bloomberg’s new European headquarters in London. Comprised of twelve parts on three floors of the building, this permanent installation takes everyday objects and enlarges them to a monumental scale.
Michael Craig-Martin, Lexicon, 2017 (detail). Photo: James Newton
Video
Michael Craig-Martin
From Artist to School
Artist and professor Michael Craig-Martin looks back on the years he taught YBAs at Goldsmiths in London, recalling their shared energy and passion for art, if not a shared style, and giving advice to current students on making the transition from student to practicing artist.
Museum Exhibitions
On View
Icons
Through November 14, 2021
Boghossian Foundation, Brussels
www.villaempain.com
From early European and Middle Eastern artifacts to modern and contemporary works, icons have inspired many believers, as well as artists, throughout the ages. This exhibition explores how spiritual dimensions have been incorporated into artworks from antiquity to the present day. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Ellen Gallagher, Douglas Gordon, Duane Hanson, Titus Kaphar, and Andy Warhol is included.
Ellen Gallagher, Untitled, 2000 © Ellen Gallagher
Closed
The Shape of Things
Michael Craig-Martin at Discovery Green
August 1–November 3, 2019
Discovery Green, Houston
www.discoverygreen.com
The Shape of Things comprises a series of six monumental steel sculptures by Michael Craig-Martin offering a playful perspective of everyday objects, which challenge our perception of space, appearing like line drawings in the air.
Installation view, The Shape of Things: Michael Craig-Martin at Discovery Green, Discovery Green, Houston, August 1–November 3, 2019. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin
Closed
The Aerodrome
An exhibition dedicated to the memory of Michael Stanley
June 12–September 8, 2019
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England
www.ikon-gallery.org
This exhibition, dedicated to the memory of former Ikon director Michael Stanley, is structured loosely on Rex Warner’s 1941 wartime novel The Aerodrome, a book that made a great impression on Stanley. The show features many of the artists he worked with, including Michael Craig-Martin, Thomas Houseago, and Jenny Saville.
Jenny Saville, Portrait of Lola, 2019 © Jenny Saville
Closed
RA Summer Exhibition 2019
June 10–August 12, 2019
Royal Academy of Arts, London
www.royalacademy.org.uk
Running annually since 1769, the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open-submission art show. It brings together art in all mediums—prints, paintings, film, photography, sculpture, architectural works and more—with some 1,200 works on display, many of them for the first time. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Thomas Houseago, and Anselm Kiefer is included.
Installation view, RA Summer Exhibition 2019, Royal Academy of Arts, London, June 10–August 12, 2019. Artwork © Thomas Houseago
Closed
Michael Craig-Martin
Present Sense
January 29–April 25, 2019
Gallery at Windsor, Vero Beach, Florida
www.windsorflorida.com
The most comprehensive exhibition to date of Michael Craig-Martin’s work in the United States, Present Sense features over thirty-five works in the gallery and grounds of the Windsor, including recent paintings, sculptures, and prints. The show is presented in collaboration with the Royal Academy, London, and curated by Gagosian director Hannah Freedberg.
Michael Craig-Martin, Gate (white), 2011, installation view, Windsor, Vero Beach, Florida © Michael Craig-Martin
Closed
Heads Roll
August 11–November 24, 2018
Graves Gallery, Sheffield, England
www.museums-sheffield.org.uk
Depictions of the head or face are some of the most compelling images in our visual language. Heads Roll, curated by artist Paul Morrison, presents a constellation of historical and contemporary perspectives to explore the subject through ideas of resemblance, abstraction, fiction, and authenticity. Work by Glenn Brown and Michael Craig-Martin is included.
Glenn Brown, Die Mutter des Künstlers, 2016 © Glenn Brown
Closed
The Classical Now
March 2–April 28, 2018
King’s College, London
www.kcl.ac.uk
The Classical Now pairs the work of modern and contemporary artists with classical Greek and Roman antiquities. The exhibition traces the ways in which Greco-Roman art has captured and permeated modern imagination, while exploring the myriad continuities and contrasts between the ancient, modern, and contemporary, revealing the “classical” as a living and fluid tradition. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Damien Hirst, Alex Israel, Yves Klein, Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman, Pablo Picasso, and Rachel Whiteread is included.
Roy Lichtenstein, Temple, 1964 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Closed
Michael Craig-Martin in
Folkestone Triennial 2017
September 2–November 5, 2017
Folkestone, England
www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk
This exhibition invites artists to engage with the rich cultural history of Folkestone and to exhibit newly commissioned work in public spaces around the town. A new commissioned work by Michael Craig-Martin is included.
Michael Craig-Martin, Folkestone Lightbulb, 2017. Commissioned by the Creative Foundation for Folkestone Triennial 2017. Photo by Thierry Bal
Closed
Turkish Tulips
July 29–November 5, 2017
The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, England
www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk
The familiar tulip becomes unfamiliar as its role in history chronicles a greater play. This exhibition brings together works by thirty artists to explore the relationship between Europe and the Middle East. It is a story about migration and about how much is owed to the
East—a land steeped in culture, mathematics, science, and philosophy. This is also a romantic story set
in seventeenth-century Europe,
a fable about social inequality and extravagance. Work by Michael Craig-Martin and Damien Hirst is included.
Michael Craig-Martin, Tulips (after Mapplethorpe), 2016