MaIkael Craig Martin's paintings can be as bright or as boring as he wants them to be. That's his strange gamble. Everyday objects are reduced to graphic outlines, and as mundane as the ladder, corkscrew, bucket and telephone depicted in them, they come in dazzling cobalt, emerald and yellow And cherry red. Even when the brain shuts down, the eyes pop out. The artist is in total control.
Irish-born, US-educated Craig Martin, who was a mentor to the YBA generation at Goldsmiths and whose work is held in public collections around the world, is 83 years old and has had to wait a long time for a major retrospective at the institution where he has been associated for many years. Royal Academy Show The exhibition is reasonably spacious and beautifully installed, ranging from early conceptual works to drawings on thin black tape, computer-generated graphics and countless paintings on canvas, aluminium and plain white walls, from constantly changing digital portraits of Zaha Hadid and the Countess of Burlington to a waterfall of the artist's motifs, complete with electronic soundtrack, projected into the final darkened gallery.
Outside, the same old signs have reappeared as big iron statues in the RA's forecourt, adding dimension without any obvious benefit. They're exactly like the fun elements of a children's playground – big shoes, big umbrellas – but you can't climb on them. And what else is there to do if you get absolutely nothing out of looking?
It all begins (and ends) here Oak1973: A glass of water carefully placed on a wall-mounted shelf. It's clearly not oak, but the artist has miraculously transformed the water into wood. At least, that's what the parody Q&A that always prints alongside it says. This act of wheezing movement, or for more solemn viewers, conceptual transformation, is what made Craig Martin famous in the '70s and has seemed to maintain it ever since.
A glass of water appears as a recurring image in the exhibition, sometimes accompanied by a giant word “Sex” and sometimes next to Duchamp's urinal. Magritte's Totem Pipe; surrounds the grand exit; absolutely no irony (and absolutely no humility). You have to look up at the original glass/wood on the shelf, towering above the world.
And this is the main transition in Craig Martin's long career: from ready-made products to their depiction. But not just any ready-made product will do. First, the subject must be a mundane consumer product. Second, the subject must accommodate his graphic talents. Curved objects must be solid: a fire extinguisher, a tin globe, a disposable cup (a bunch of grapes is completely incomprehensible to him). And liquids must be stationary. It's all surfaces, planes, contours.
Line and color are meticulously separated; there is no poetic or literal connection between the two. Look at the artist's self-portrait: orange eyebrows, turquoise hair, poisonous green lips. But even this adjective is too one-sided. Craig Martin is nothing more than a stylish summary of his own face, a simplified, coded data on a bright pink surface. You may recognize him, but that's it. You cannot know him.
Hope returns. A huge painting from 1981 shows various objects in circles of dark lines. Tropical Waters. in Studying modern dance In “Places of the Earth,” a work by the same name that was written in 1980, all the objects are uniform in size, forming a choir of tilting instruments. But if the composition and title promise something more eloquent, this is soon dashed. Both works are as emotionless and boring as glass.
Perhaps there's a suggestion of something about seeing and vision, objects and images? A giant fountain pen draws straight lines on the wall; cartoonists could hardly have asked for more witty. A drawing of an upturned pencil sharpener highlights the blade at the end with a tiny screw, giving the impression of a portal to a dark interior; except, as Craig-Martin always erases mystery, the interior is a cheerful cobalt green.
The joy of drawing (or the life-changing magic of tidying up: some pieces feature perfect Marie Kondo diagrams of artfully folded shirts) is as much blocked from sight as from living emotion. Three images depicting a credit card, a shirt, and a coffin are a kind of Death of a Salesman Tragically, everything is neatly erased anonymously: no details, no buttons, no names.
Even if you couldn't have guessed it, the wall text reminds us that Craig Martin believes art should be experienced, not interpreted, and that he “intentionally makes work that defies interpretation.” That doesn't stop the curators from trying. They suggest that the arrangement of the windows, chaise lounge and syringe on the 2021 plane alludes to the coronavirus. How flippant, if true.
But Craig Martin doesn't shy away from stronger hints of his own: a series of interlaced images shows an iPad on top of a book, a thumbstick on top of a filing cabinet, a computer on top of a television. Then and Now The title is unnecessary: a photo of a half-open closet is teasingly titled, StingingThe word “Love” is written in giant letters above an image of a pink rubber glove.
It's easy to like these paintings, especially when they're on sale as miniature postcards and prints in the RA shop. But are they, as people say, the true test of democracy? By this argument, no one would question a detailed painting of a can opener against a lime green background. But this confuses subject and content. Craig Martin makes no distinction between Falk and Édouard Manet. Look at his ugly paintings: Master Variation. It's all about style and method.
Finally the bustling gallery of ticker-taped motifs on the walls is so pretty, yet so completely empty; it's a constant repetition of everything we've seen so far. Why Craig Martin feels the need to summarise his art in this way is a mystery, since you only need to see one of his works at the Royal Academy to get an impression of almost all his others. Is there really any need to see them at all?
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