'Everything I ever worked on is coming together now'
The Independent|September 16, 2024
Conceptual artist, painter, mentor to the YBAs, overnight success at 55. On the eve of a Royal Academy retrospective show, Mark Hudson interviews Michael Craig-Martin
Mark Hudson
'Everything I ever worked on is coming together now'

Michael Craig-Martin looks out from his 21st-storey apartment in the Barbican, the immense London sprawl spread out before him. The urbane Irish-American artist has played many roles since arriving here in 1966: pranksterish conceptual artist in the Seventies, guru to the YBA generation in the Eighties, and creator, more recently, of a kind of digital-age still life painting in eye-popping colour.

Yet it’s only now that he’s getting his due as one of the handful of living artists to have been accorded the honour of a retrospective exhibition in the Royal Academy’s palatial main galleries. Does he feel he’s finally got the British capital at his feet – in all senses?

“I’m 83 tomorrow,” he says in a tone of wonder. “And it’s as though everything I’ve ever worked on or thought about is coming together now.”

For all his presence on the London art scene over nearly half a century, from youthful interloper to distinguished elder statesman – a Royal Academician indeed – Craig-Martin was a late developer in terms of creating an immediately identifiable style. Indeed, he didn’t even start making the paintings for which he is best known until the mid-Nineties, when he was well into his fifties.

“Most artists have their career high point early or in mid-career, and when they have a big retrospective it’s giving recognition to work produced over a long period,” he says. “So it’s interesting to me that my career high is coming now, with an exhibition of work mostly produced very recently, if not right now.”

There are interviews that feel daunting because the subject has a reputation for being surly, incoherent or simply shy. But on the evidence of Craig-Martin’s formidably articulate autobiographycum-how to book On Being an Artist, the more unnerving certainty is that there is likely no question to which he won’t have a clearly thought out and long practised answer.

Bu hikaye The Independent dergisinin September 16, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

Bu hikaye The Independent dergisinin September 16, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

THE INDEPENDENT DERGISINDEN DAHA FAZLA HIKAYETümünü görüntüle
All Blacks offer benchmark for Irish great expectations
The Independent

All Blacks offer benchmark for Irish great expectations

Victory for Ireland over New Zealand this evening won't wash away the pain of 14 October 2023.

time-read
4 dak  |
November 08, 2024
Arteta's vision for Arsenal at a crossroads after Edu exit
The Independent

Arteta's vision for Arsenal at a crossroads after Edu exit

Arsenal have become unaccustomed to being underdogs.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 08, 2024
Centre stage for England's most in-form midfielder
The Independent

Centre stage for England's most in-form midfielder

After becoming a parent, after earning a place in the tabletopping team, after a stellar player-of-the-match performance in a high-profile game and after providing one of the Champions League highlights of the week, Curtis Jones has another milestone occasion in his sights: a first senior international cap for England.

time-read
4 dak  |
November 08, 2024
United win ends year-long wait for success in Europe
The Independent

United win ends year-long wait for success in Europe

For a club who have been champions of Europe three times, a win in continental competition really shouldn’t be such a rarity.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 08, 2024
Hoorah for interest cut but we need another one soon
The Independent

Hoorah for interest cut but we need another one soon

After a turbulent few weeks, the Bank of England yesterday delivered a soothing balm to Britain's hard-pressed borrowers with a quarter-point cut in interest rates.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 08, 2024
Sainsbury's to raise prices due to Budget 'pressure'
The Independent

Sainsbury's to raise prices due to Budget 'pressure'

Sainsbury's has said shoppers will face higher prices as a result of the surprise tax changes announced in last week's Budget, which will hit the retailer with an extra £140m in costs.

time-read
2 dak  |
November 08, 2024
Keyboard warriors: a night at the Superbowl of esports
The Independent

Keyboard warriors: a night at the Superbowl of esports

The O2 arena sold out in a Glastonbury-esque frenzy, with resale tickets going for up to 1,000 online. All this for the chance to watch people play a desktop game on a jumbo screen? Annabel Nugent went to see what the big deal is

time-read
5 dak  |
November 08, 2024
NOBODY'S PERFECT
The Independent

NOBODY'S PERFECT

Eddie Redmayne has won rave reviews as an assassin in a TV adaptation of The Day of the Jackal’ but Geoffrey Macnab says it isn’t a patch on the 1973 movie starring Edward Fox

time-read
7 dak  |
November 08, 2024
How a new generation is giving granny tights a leg up
The Independent

How a new generation is giving granny tights a leg up

Kayleigh Werner explores how Gen Z superstars like Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift have reclaimed a hosiery staple most Brits associate with Nory sa and made it me

time-read
4 dak  |
November 08, 2024
PREACHY CLEAN
The Independent

PREACHY CLEAN

Videos of CleanTok influencers making their homes shine have more than 150 billion views. Ellie Muir looks at whether their bizarre methods are setting unhealthily high standards

time-read
5 dak  |
November 08, 2024