FOLLIES
Artist-prankster Martin Creed‘s work has the slickness of television advertising; it’s bright, spare, and sprightly. And its content, even when overtly political (like videos of refugees) or scatalogical (like films of people relieving themselves) is rendered practically irrelevant by its good cheer.
For his retrospective at the Armory, The Back Door, Creed has been given the run of the place. He fills smaller ground level rooms with quirky paintings, sculptures and installations. One room has neat pyramidal stacks of chairs and tables, and another is packed with white melon-sized latex balloons. He fills the low brick vaults along the Drill Hall with video-viewing booths. One shows two dogs running across a blank white screen, and another shows hipsters vomiting against a blank white screen. And he leaves the Drill Hall empty except for a giant screen hanging in the middle, which shows films of women eating yogurt in slow motion. This is a show best approached breezily, with a light heart and few expectations. One might stop and wonder Is this art? but one knows this is art, a type of art that doesn’t touch the soul and doesn’t aim too.
My favorite part of the exhibit is a band of five young musicians (including drums, trumpet, cymbals, and singer) who roam the floor performing pop songs written by Creed. They step into rooms unexpectedly, weave in between visitors without meeting their embarrassed glances, then pass out into another room. They’re dressed in ragtag street clothes, like escapees from a juvenile prison, and have a po-faced determination that’s old-fashioned and slightly mad. In the large, wood-lined halls of the Armory, their simple tunes hang in the air like hymns. Their performance ties the show together, highlights the cavernous architecture of the building, and, quite simply, spreads joy.
Still from ‘Work No. 732: Kicking Flowers’ by Martin Creed, 2007. Courtesy of Martin Creed.
