Art is Life (Saving)

It’s the simplicity and relief of it

I’ve often heard artists talk about how making art for them is not optional, it’s essential. Life-saving, even. I was thinking about that this week as I was watching an interview with one of Britain’s leading conceptual artists, Martin Creed. As well as making videos, he’s a musician, he paints, creates installations, uses lights and neon, and makes stuff.

The first question he was asked in the interview was ‘what do you do?’ I found his response really interesting. Instead of saying ‘I’m an artist’, Creed said,

I try to live my life in the world that I find myself in. And I spend most of my time trying to help myself to feel better because most of the time I don’t feel so good.

What he does every day, he says, is ‘to try and find excitement and beautiful things and people’ as a coping mechanism for the way he feels — and it’s an endless quest. The interview is one of the clearest explanations I’ve ever heard for the meaning of the phrase ‘art is life’. As Creed understands it, there is no separating line between what he creates and anything else he does in his day. Other people might call what he does ‘art’ but he’s not sure what ‘art’ actually is. ‘Art is what people collectively think it is’, he says. ‘It’s really hard to pin down, like love or magic’.

I know what he means. Readers who have followed me since the early days of The Gallery Companion will know that Creed is one of my favourite artists. I think…