Closing Celebration and De-installation of Sightings: Martin Creed at the Nasher Sculpture Center

On August 21, the public was invited to the Nasher Sculpture Center to be a part of the closing celebration for Sightings: Martin Creed. For one day only, visitors were invited to enjoy a final experience of Work No. 1190: Half the air in a given space, the popular interactive installation featuring the Nasher's Lower Level Gallery filled with 9,000 gold balloons, and then take a piece of the artwork (the balloons!) home with them.

About Sightings: Martin Creed:

In the second installment of Sightings, the Nasher Sculpture Center's new series of installations and interventions, Turner Prize-winning artist, Martin Creed debuts the site-specific, experiential installation Work No. 1190: Half the air in a given space in the Nasher's Lower Level Gallery.

Creed transforms the Lower Level Gallery, filling the space with approximately 9,000 gold balloons to a height over 8 feet. Related to several earlier installations, the balloons enclose and make visible portions of the volume of air in the room to drastically alter one's physical experience of the space, as well as explore the relationship between sculpture and architecture. Sightings: Martin Creed also includes a focused selection of recent work in the space outside the Lower Level Gallery, including sound sculptures on the stairs and elevator activated by the visitor.

Over the past two decades, Creed's work -- which has included painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, musical performance, and text -- has consistently explored the emotional and existential impact of dichotomous physical states: presence versus absence, being versus nothingness, and doing versus not doing. In 2001, Creed won the prestigious Turner Prize, given to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or installation in the previous year, for Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, an empty room in which the lights continuously alternated between being on and being off every five seconds. Often using the most straightforward, unassuming means, Creed's work takes joy in simple experiences and questions our assumptions of what a work of art is and what it means to be an artist.

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Tags:

• Nasher Sculpture Center
• Dallas Artis District
• Martin Creed
• Sightings: Martin Creed
• Dallas
• Texas
• Balloons
• Closing Celebration