Michael Craig-Martin: An Oak Tree (1974)
Excerpt from John A. Walker’s Art and outrage (1999).
Michael Craig-Martin - Oak Tree - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
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Michael Craig-Martin. An Oak Tree (1974).
On being shipped to Brisbane in 1976 for an exhibition, An Oak Tree was impounded for a time by the Agricultural Division of Customs because they thought, quite reasonably given the title on the bill of lading, that the crate contained a living plant. So, when Craig-Martin retrieved the crate, he presumably had to confess to Customs that there was no oak tree inside.
The miracle of the oak tree appears to belong to the category of artists’ assertions familiar from Marcel Duchamp onwards: “I am an artist, therefore if I say something’s art then it is art... ergo, if I say a glass of water is an oak tree then it is an oak tree.” (This attitude fails to take into account the fact that art is a social institution. More people than artists are involved in the definition and recognition of art.) Michael Craig-Martin has stated: “If An Oak Tree is true, which of course it is, then I can do anything I want.” (For him it was a way of leaping over self-imposed artistic limitations.) But he also told Rod Stoneman: “The Oak Tree... is clearly a lie, it depends on a lie. It also depends on cooperation in playing along with that lie in order for it to arrive at some kind of understanding about the truth.” He is an admirer of Oscar Wilde’s 1889 essay on the value and art of lying. Picasso also characterised art as a lie which, nevertheless, gave access to truth.
It is pointless to refute the oak tree mircale by logical means because it defies sense impressions, reason and the laws of science. In theory Catholics should be sympathetic to An Oak Tree because they believe in miracles and accept that God took on the form of a Jewish man and that the application of water to babies’ heads transforms them into Christians, when the faithful attend Mass they accept that the wafers and wine they consume are, in reality, the body and blood of Christ.
Michael Craig-Martin was brought up as a Catholic and he was well aware that his piece was an instance of God-like transubstantiation. Lynne Cooke comments: “Whereas the act of apprehension is normally considered to involve conceptual and perceptual activity, they are, Craig-Martin implies, insufficient in themselves: what is crucial is faith.” Certainly, some faith is inherent in the apprehension of art: the “willing suspension of disbelief” during the illusionistic narratives of the theatre or cinema; “seeing as” in painting, that is, seeing configurations of brushstrokes of pigment on canvas as the face of van Gogh, or clouds, and so on.
One would be tempted to conclude that Michael Craig-Martin is an extremely arrogant artist were it not for the fact that he undermines his own position by also playing the part of the sceptical viewer. Faith is thus counterbalanced by doubt.
Michael Craig-Martin - Oak Tree - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
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