Michael Craig Martin

Art Space Talk: Michael Craig-Martin
Born in Dublin in 1941, Michael Craig-Martin studied at Yale University School of Art and Architecture in the early 1960s, but has spent most of his working life in Great Britain. Since that time he has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Britain and internationally, including the definitive exhibition of British conceptual art, The New Art,at the Hayward Gallery (1972). The impact Michael has had on the world of art is obvious. From 1974 to 1988, Michael instructed art at Goldsmiths College, London. During that time Michael instructed- Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume, Damien Hirst, Mat Collishaw, Fiona Rae, Liam Gillick, Simon Patterson, Richard Patterson, Michael Landy, Abigail Lane, Angus Fairhurst, Angela Bullock, and Ian Davenport.Michael returned to Goldsmiths College in 1993 as Millard Professor of Fine Art. Michael has a long and impressive list of accomplishments in the world of art: He has served as a Trustee at the Tate Gallery, has done installations for the Projects exhibition series at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1991) and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1994), and has created major wallpainting installations atthe Kunstverein Hannover (1998) and at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (1999). Michael represented Great Britain at the XXIV Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil) in 1998 due to his dedication and contributions to the artworld.

Brian Sherwin: Michael, when did you first realize that you wanted to be an artist? Can you recall any memories or events from your youth that set you on that path?Michael Craig-Martin: I decided I wanted to be an artist very young - I was about 12 when I first saw reproductions of 'modern' art. For some reason I realized that art would always be elusive and ungraspable and I knew that that was for me. I met a 'real' artist, the Spanish artist Antonio Roda, when I was 14 and started drawing classes with him. I was very determined but full of self-doubt. BS:Michael, you studied art at Yale University School of Art and Architecture.Who were your mentors at that time? Also, can you recall any of your early influences? MCM: My most helpful teachers were Al Held, Alex Katz, Jack Tworkov, and Neil Welliver. Amongst my fellow students were Brice Marden, Chuck Close, Richard Serra, Jon Borofsky, Jennifer Bartlett, Victor Burgin. I think one's fellow students areat least, if not more important than one's teachers.

BS: You have spent most of your working life in Great Britain. Why did you decide to move from the States to Great Britain? Were you bored of the US scene? Or did you just need a change? MCM: A mix of reasons. My parents lived in London until I was 3 and I was always fascinated by that other life I almost had. It was the swinging 60's, and Iwas the same age as the Beatles. I didn't realize it was perhaps the greatest period of American art. The disastrous Vietnam war was

revealing the worst aspects of America, just as the even more disastrous Iraq war is now. I was offered a teaching job in England, we had a baby, and I needed the money. I meant to stay a year or two. That was 41 years ago. BS: Michael, you exhibited art at thedefinitive exhibition of British conceptual art, The New Art, at the Hayward Gallery in 1972. Can you recall that period of time? Were you concerned that people would not 'get it', so to speak? MCM: It was a period of real austerity in Britain - I was poorer than anyone I'd ever met. But it was a great time to be a young artist - I remember it as a period of exceptional creative freedom andadventure, when one was regularly presented with works of art unlike anything one had ever seen before. What tiny audience there was was highly committed and informed. Most people were convinced that the art we made was either a con or an intellectual game from which they were excluded. We could never have imagined there would ever be the large popular audience for art there is today.

BS: In the...