Martin Creed @ The Fruitmarket Gallery

Martin Creed has a penchant for order. He likes to stack things according to their size, for instance. A stack of chairs, one on top of the other, might not look like much to me or you but we can only imagine what degrees of bliss it might lift someone of Creed’s sensibility. And it’s this very seeming insignificance that is central to Creed’s charm; that all his works are of muted consequence is fundamental to its import.

Essentially, with Creed’s work, what you see is what you get. Whether you can come to enjoy this is a different matter. His famous Turner Prize winning piece, Work No. 227, was a light going on and off, and saw people declaring the end of the sensible world. This was an exaggeration, of course, but it changed art as we once knew it, nonetheless. There was a poetic charm to Work No. 227; dry, systematic and austere, but poetic all the same.

With his new show at The Fruitmarket Gallery, we’ll see recent and newly commissioned works that will address Creed’s interest in ordering everyday objects. A row of different sized planks of wood will either make you cry with frustration or weep with a profound sense of pathos inherent in the inanimate world; a column of different sized brush strokes of pink paint might just make you storm out the gallery in a rage, or see you discreetly stacking the coins in your pocket accordingly.

Let’s not forget Creed’s overt playfulness. As a new commission he’ll turn The Fruitmarket staircase into a synthesizer, each step sounding a different note when stepped upon.

Martin Creed is without question one of the most important artists of the last decade. Go and see this show. Even if it will get on your nerves. [Andrew Cattanach]