Work No. 850, Or, Run, Velazquez, Run
Martin Creed, an important "conceptual" artist of our epoch, who won the Tate Prize in 2001 for his Work No. 227, the lights going on and off. This work consisted of an empty room in which the lights kept going, at intervals, on and off. Some people weren't sure this was even art; they were of course laughingly dismissed.
Creed was this year give a commission, sponsored by Sotheby's, to create an original work of art for the Duveen Galleries at the Tate, to be on display this summer. He finished it in record time; in fact, it hardly took any time at all to complete it, and the sophisticated and the discerning, who do not go to galleries to see Norman Rockwell or Grandma Moses, are delighted with Creed's Work No. 850.
Work No. 850 consists of a series or relay of runners who, every 30 seconds , sprint through the gallery, apparently in it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane-it's-Superman fashion.
Oh, why?
Well, as an official statement put out by the Tate Gallery puts it, "Work No. 850 is about the purest expression of human vitality. This investigation into the body celebrates physicality and the human spirit, the constant ebb and flow of nature."
How true. And isn't that what a work of art is supposed to do, to offer "the purest expression of human vitality" and to conduct an "investigation"(not sure about exactly how this investigation part works with the running-as-fast-as-you-can-through-the-Gallery part, but I'm sure they somehow blend) "into the body" that "celebrates physicality and the human spirit," which -- in the twinkling of a comma, becomes the same thing as "the constant ebb and flow of nature."
So run, Balthus, run. Run, Matisse, run. Run, Velazquez, run. All of you, run run run, tso as to offer the purest expression of human vitality, and what's more, to celebrate physicality and the human spirit, the constant ebb and flow of nature.
Martin Creed's hired sprinters will show you how.
And we, who are living at this hour, can only admire, can only be grateful, can only stand astonied, at the Progress of Art.
