Exhibition Copy: Martin Creed, The lights going on and off

Martin Creed is a British artist, composer and performer. For Exhibition Copy he is showing two works, A lamp going on and off, Work No. 312 (2003) and The lights going on and off, Work No. 160 (1996). For the first work the instruction is for a lamp to turn on for 1 second then off for 1 second. For the second the lights in a space go off for five seconds seconds then on for five seconds. Creed won the UK’s most prestigious art accolade, The Turner Prize, with a version of these works. He says he devised the piece by, "trying to make something without bringing in anything extra into the gallery”.

Creed says, "To me (art) has to be somehow funny or annoying, or exciting to make it worth doing. When the lights are going on and off in a gallery it's really fun and stupid and I love it. It's a relief from all those other art things. These works I do are like tiny little pieces of theatre in the gallery.”

At Gallery Closed (1733 Lowrie), Ron’s Pizza Palace (1535 Lowrie), the former beauty shop (1723 Lowrie) and the home at 1830 Lowrie, the works can be seen 24 hours a day. At the school (1423 Lowrie) and at the public notary (1610 Lowrie) they are visible from dusk until dawn.