Michael Craig-Martin: An Oak Tree (1974)
Michael Craig-Martin - Oak Tree - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
However, apart from the modicum of literary skill involved in composing and writing the text and the brainwork involved in conceiving the piece and taking the decisions to select shelf, glass and water, An Oak Tree evinces virtually no artistic skill of the kind traditionally associated with the plastic arts. This is because Craig-Martin’s declared ambition at the time was to make art without any physical transformation of the material. His title and text ensure that any transformation only occurs in the mind of the reader, and it offers little either on the way of aesthetic pleasure. (These were the main reasons it was rejected by those outside the art world.) If one agrees that it is Conceptual rather than visual/plastic art, what cognitive insights does it provide? Again the answer is: apart from the observation that faith can override the evidence of the senses, previous little. It is a mild critique of religion, a minor mind game. Yoko Ono played the latter with most zest during the 1960s.
As far as the younger generation of British artists are concerned, Michael Craig-Martin’s Conceptual “masterpiece” is a suitable subject for art world in-jokes. At the New Contemporaries exhibition, held at the Camden Arts Centre, London, in July 1996, a group of Northern artists calling themselves Leeds United (after the football team of that name) parodied An Oak Tree by exhibiting 30 glass shelves with different kinds of drinking glasses resting on them, placed at various heights on the wall. The glasses contained six different kinds of clear liquid. Scattered on the floor below were a number of empty spirit bottles— the remains of an opening night drinking bout/performance. According to Leeds United, as a result of an alcohol-induced change of state, both participants and concepts were “felled”, hence the installation’s title Felled 1996 or Ancient Deciduous Forest—Felled.
Notes:
> Caryn Faure Walker. “Michael Craig-Martin at the Rowan Gallery”. Studio International, 187 / 967, (June 1974), p. 12 (Review Section).
> Anne Seymour. Michael Craig-Martin: Selected Works 1966-75. (Leigh, Lancashire: Turnpike Gallery, 1976).
> Lynne Cooke & others. Michael Craig-Martin: A
Retrospective 1968-89. (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1989).
> J. Roberts. “Michael Craig-Martin”. Contemporary Artists, ed. C. Naylor (Chicago and London: St James Press, 3rd edn, 1989), pp. 217-18.
> David Lee. “In Profile: Craig-Martin”. Art Review, Vol. XLVII, (December 1995/January 1996), pp. 6-10.
> S. Craddock & others. New Contemporaries ’96. (Liverpool: Tate Gallery / London: Camden Arts Centre, 1996).
> Kam Patel. “Brit Art’s foundation figure”. The Times Higher (6 February 1998), pp. 18-19.
> Letters and phone conversations with Leeds United.
Michael Craig-Martin - Oak Tree - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
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