Martin Creed: Down Over Up at The Fruitmarket Gallery 30 July - 31 October 2010

A major exhibition of new and recent work by Martin Creed, one of Britain's most highly-regarded and popular artists. Creed's work captures the public imagination, while also attracting critical acclaim for its generous, accessible approach. He puts ideas out in the world in a variety of materials, not all of them art materials yet not all of them everyday stuff either (while he makes work with readily available, simple things such as planks of wood, stacked chairs or pieces of crumpled paper; he also uses paint, a traditional artist's material, and professionally trained runners and ballet dancers, neither of which are particularly easy to get hold of). In 2001 he won the Turner Prize with Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, and in 2008 responded to the prestigious Duveen Commission at Tate Britain with the phenomenally popular Work No. 850, in which runners sprinted through the gallery at 30-second intervals.

Consisting of recent and newly-commissioned work, this exhibition focuses on stacking and progression in size, height and tone -- stacks of planks, chairs, tables, boxes, pieces of lego; series of paintings; and works making use of the musical scale. Creed talks about these works in terms of a picture of growth; showing process, progress and things in movement. A highlight of the exhibition is a new commission in which Creed turns the Gallery's staircase into a synthesizer, with each step sounding a different note on the scale as the audience walks up or down.

The exhibition's focus on progression -- on going up and down steps -- gives a context to a new permanent work of public sculpture currently in development. Part of a City of Edinburgh Council and Edinburgh World Heritage renovation of Edinburgh's Scotsman Steps, this work is commissioned by The Fruitmarket Gallery and supported through the Scottish Government's Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund for Edinburgh Art Festival 2010. Creed plans to resurface the Steps with different and contrasting marbles from all over the world, creating a visually spectacular, beautiful and thoughtful response to this historic artery. Keep checking back for more information on the project.

To coincide with Martin Creed's exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Sadler's Wells and The Fruitmarket Gallery are presenting Martin Creed's Ballet: Work No. 1020 at the Traverse Theatre as part of the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A piece for dancers, live band, art and the artist, this is a funny and thoughtful work by Creed. Based around the five positions in ballet and the notes of the musical scale, the ballet speaks eloquently to the incremental impulses at play in Creed's work; the ordering and re-ordering of the everyday which gives his work its particular magic.

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Entertainment

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• Martin
• Creed
• art
• edinburgh
• festival
• turner
• prize
• winner
• fruitmarket
• gallery

[Naud1234]

I like the stairs the most. With a few people you could make a song with it, like Mario.