- Venue
- Arnolfini
- Location
- South West England
He paced the floor, rubbed his head, seemed perplexed. 'I'm scared of being sick (and shit)', he said…but filming it is exciting.
Martin Creed gave the third in the series of four artist's talks at the Arnolfini last night, and gave a resounding protrait of the artist as contradiction. 'Being scared of shit' was something to say – he was giving a talk.
The opening was SICK FILM, showing paid volunteers vomiting on to a white floor. The sound track was excruciatingly real while the visuals were, well, painterly. The audience tittered, Creed wondered whether it was too gross, and should he have edited down the second person?
We watched the trailer for SHIT, new films in progress of flowers being kicked apart ('I like kicking flowers' said Creed) and dogs trotting across the frame.
All his films were made using a single camera with the 'actors' performing in front of it, choosing where they wanted to be . For Creed the process itself was thoroughly enjoyable – all those people to arrange things with…and those big techie machines (to swoon over).
Some films he made for theatres, such as SICK FILM, to be watched by a sitting audience, and some for galleries to be looked at in passing.
He was positively heroic in answering questions, whether the price he was paid to do the lecture, or the aim of his art (no point in intellectualising as most writing about art is creative writing). He talked about his four times a week psycho-analysis sessions and recommended them to everyone.
And yes he did practice with his band – only he felt he performed better if he didn't practice so much.
The Arnolfini artist's talks are an excellent forum for the artists to either perform/provide a discourse about their art and the audience to question them. Bob and Roberta Smith introduced us to the convoluted world of public art and involved the audience in singing about the glories of rhubarb, David Mackintosh described how he produced then edited his [drawings], and Creed allowed himself to be closely questioned for over 45 minutes…have you had your money's worth? he said. Yes we had.
The next artist talk – Sarah Dobai, Arnolfini, Bristol, 6pm, 14 November.
