1. Martin Creed: What's the point of it? Hayward Gallery - Monday 17th February.
I
remember going to an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery two or three
years ago which was billed as child friendly and coming away feeling
that they had been absolutely genuine and correct about the show's
non-adult audience's potential enjoyment. My kids ran amok enjoying
colours, mirrors and interactive installations. No one told them not
to. Visitors were also encouraged to take photographs and upload them
online when they returned home. In retrospect I really appreciate the
continued invitation to interact even after we'd left the space. It was
so refreshing to go to an exhibition that was so incredibly inviting
and fun.
Martin Creed's exhibition was billed as child
appropriate too. So, it was a bit disappointing to hear five little
boys, aged between 2 and 9, being told not to run or shout before they'd
even entered the space. Perhaps the woman tearing our tickets had
spotted and recognised my friend and I, along with our brood as “out of
control mothers with feral kids” in the foyer, waiting to buy tickets
while we, a little desperately and ineffectually, tried to keep them all
together and reasonably behaved - perhaps they'd engaged in a type of
art-sensitive profiling system. I'm not sure what that message did to
the kids - but most likely it made them want to run and shout, however,
it immediately put both my friend and I on edge. Oh, no, really? They
can't run or shout? How is that child friendly? And why then would you
give them the idea that they might anyway???
Children
respond instinctively to the world around them and if you place them in
an art gallery with work that is designed to provoke reactions then
theirs' can sometimes be immediate and visceral, so shouting and
screaming seemed pretty likely. (My oldest suddenly and
uncharacteristically took his trousers down when he was two years old as
we meandered through a series of Giocometti sculptures and paintings at
Tate Modern - incidentally I only know about this artist because I
owned a cheap print of his for a time.)
So, we entered
and of course the five children scattered with whoops and squeals of
delight. A massive wooden MOTHERS sign whooshed dangerously close to
our heads as it spun round above us at variable speeds “so that it seems
dangerously out of control” (there is a height limit and you cannot
enter if over 6’6” and even though I'm quite a small person it felt
horribly precarious).
As my eyes darted about trying
to spot each of my own children, feeling like I might be hit over the
head any minute, I became aware of my friend tapping me on the
shoulder. It all happened very quickly but she pointed to a tall man in
trendy jeans, wearing converse shoes, and bright blue rubber gloves as
he swooped in like some sort of art-student/SAS/curator swat team guy
and grabbed my youngest, just 23 months old, saying through gritted
teeth, “get him out of there!”. The toddler had slipped under some
ropes that marked out the space around a painting, which he was far too
short to have reached - but the lanky curator bravely grabbed him as if
her were an explosive object before depositing him safely on the right
side of the rope, rendering his explosive qualities safe. And I, a
bundle of embarrassed nerves by now, quickly made a decision not to get
my note book out which I'd sort of hoped to do in a kind of conciliatory
gesture to myself for having to cancel the actual study visit I'd been
booked on with OCA to the SAATCHI gallery at end of the week. Phew.
Great start.
Remembering to breath, eyes darting even
more energetically between children now, we went on. I was alarmed by
the site of a tower of cardboard boxes and immediately went straight to
the toddler to steer him away. I caught the eye of the security guard
keeping a close eye on my middle son and was relieved to see him
spellbound by two televisions on top of each other showing different
focal lengths of the same scene. “Creepy,” he pronounced. Wow, they
really will watch anything and thank goodness too - he seemed happier
and calmer. I relaxed to see my eldest and his friend standing together
discussing some work or other I didn't have the time or head space to
appreciate.
But this settled moment didn't last. We
went up some stairs and I gulped in horror at the incredibly skinny,
tall and fragile looking tower of Lego that stood precariously without
any protective rope, not that that would have meant anything to the
youngest - but still. Martin Creed had been sent this Lego and asked to
create something with it. He stuck it all together in a tower. I like
the gesture. I'm not sure what it's meant to achieve as a work of art
but it terrified me - imagine the shame of witnessing one's own child
destroying a work of art in a highly regarded gallery! The sooner we
left the room the better.
But that wasn't to be.
Because there was a huge white wall. I think I'm right in thinking this
is known as Work no. 670. Creed numbers his works rather than names
them - he sees this as the most democratic solution to his work as no
status is bestowed on individual projects no matter how big or small.
He started doing this after he became unhappy with his titles.
In
Work no. 670 a projection would intermittently switch on and off
shining a bright light at a large wall and occasionally some filmed
action, sometimes two dogs, would cross the wall. Shadows were formed
by anyone who cared to stand in front of the wall. The kids, not only
mine, but lots of kids loved it. The toddler was ecstatic with the
dogs. My children didn't want to leave, they loved it so much. I
watched them. I watched the Lego tower. I watched them enjoying
themselves and began to enjoy seeing them have fun. I watched for the
art student/SAS swat/curator guy. I watched them screaming and dancing.
I watched the security people watching them. I watched the Lego
tower. I watched the other visitors enjoying seeing children enjoying
themselves. And I watched the Lego Tower.
Then my
toddler noticed a collection of balls. “My ball!”, he announced. There
was a rope around the balls. I think he may have understood the
meaning of the rope by now because he did listen when I said "no!" -
they do need socialising and I guess his earlier experience may have had
some impact. Still, time to leave that level. Why, oh, why was it so
necessary to go past the Lego Tower?
But we did. We
made it upstairs. The Lego Tower was left intact. But toddler-boy was
devastated he couldn't touch the line of cacti. Happily he was consoled
by the huge brick wall Martin Creed had constructed outside, Work no.
1812, on the sculptural terrace. They all loved it. A simple brick
wall where they all wanted to play for ages, hiding and running round
and round and round like dogs chasing their tales. It was a shame the
toddler fell off a bench and landed on his head but the moment diverted a
possible impasse. We adults were cold, the boys wanted to play by the
wall forever now. A room full of balloons beckoned though and was
enough to get everyone inside again.
We queued, some
with excitement, some with boredom, some with trepidation. I felt quite
smug. I didn't dread it all. I'm quite proud of my new self, a self
that no longer suffers with crippling anxiety (a whole other story). My
friend can at times be rather dismissive and sneering about
anxiousness. Yet she was not entirely sure she'd feel very comfortable
with the balloons and I even rather blithely offered to take her little
one in, which I'm pleased to say, she refused, before swallowing hard
and going in too.
She was right. I was wrong! It was
horrible in there. A room filled with white balloons from floor to
ceiling. There is no way to find your bearings, and the sense of panic
was immediate. My middle child let go of my hand. I felt I might lose
him in there. The balloons, being static, were covered in stray random
hairs - and that's the stuff we could see. It was unpleasant.
Unsettling. Horrible. We didn't last long. Panic escalating, we made
our way about two inches in and then out again. The boys were really
cross and wanted to stay but we could at least promise them a car out on
another terrace, so they came. Thankfully.
It's
interesting to note how shallow the panic and anxiety I feel I've said
goodbye to for now lurks. How it rises up again in a situation where I
felt utterly out of control and blinded, threatened, a sense that my
children may be threatened. I imagine this is one of Creed's aims. He
literally packages the air around you by placing it in balloons. It's
'both playful and claustrophobic', I guess depending on age and your own
mental/emotional place.
We adults got to sit down
outside, a brief respite following the mild panic we felt with the
balloons, with Work no. 1686, but it was hardly relaxing. A car that
kept coming alive, doors and boot flapping open, alarm screaming was
loved by children, then shortly afterwards ignored by them as they
played. Adults all around, even ones who knew it would happen, kept
getting a fright every time the alarm started.
As we
left we had to go under the big Mother sign again. Creed says “when
you're small, your mother is always big. So it seemed like a good
reason for this to be big and ... scary”. Perhaps he wasn't fond of his
own mother which is why he's made this exhibition, advertised it as
child friendly, which it is, but told the children not to run and scream
once inside. That makes it not very mother friendly in the slightest.
Not to this mother at any rate. I felt a bit like some sort of art
project myself, “out of control mother with feral kids" by the end of
it. Frazzled, a bag of nerves, scary and really, quite out of control
indeed! Perhaps that's what being a mother is. To be honest, that is
generally how I feel after a day out with them all anywhere. Or a day
in for that matter.
There was much I didn't see. And I
am no clearer about the answer to his title question or if he attempts
to answer it, “What's the point of it?” In fact, this is a question that
has been on my mind since someone I know said they didn't see the point
of my photos. I have to say I think it's a facile question. Maybe
Creed does too and that's his point. Because what really is the point
of anything? What is the point of going out to dinner, having candles
on the table (actually, there are those from cultures where electricity
isn't the norm who do think that's just weird), taking photographs,
making art, enjoying art, not enjoying art. What is the point in
anything beyond the most basic activities we need to do in order to
survive. Except, of course we do need these activities in order to
survive, to remain human, and that's the point too. Whilst we have
consciousness and time, asking what is the point is really rather
pointless.
The kids enjoyed it. I looked forward to a
glass of wine at the nearby Pizza Express (40% off with your NUS card
by the way). And felt almost relaxed in my role of “out of control
mother with feral kids” for a little while.
Martin Creed's website and a review of his show here:
http://www.martincreed.com/
Guardian Review of What's the point of it?
