“I don’t think it’s necessary to be original. It’s necessary to be honest.”
Martin Creed: What’s the point of it? is the first major retrospective of Creed’s ingenious and often highly provocative work. Since the beginning of his career, when he made small objects that could be placed anywhere, Creed has made work that questions the very nature of art and challenges taboos. His work takes on a multitude of forms—from sculpture, paintings, neons, films and installations, to music and performance—appearing both in the art gallery and in broader public circulation. At once rigorous and humorous, his art continually surprises, disrupts and overturns our expectations. It reflects on the unease we face in making choices, the comfort we find in repetition, the desire to control, and the inevitable losses of control that shape existence.
Martin Creed Work No. 88 1995 A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball.
“Real art doesn’t have a message, doesn’t necessarily say anything. It is an arrangement of shapes, a pattern of words. If you want an antidote to this idea of art, watch Bob Dylan manically arranging and rearranging words on a shop sign he and the band spotted one day. That is art.”
Ideas have fathers One of the many destructive assumptions nowadays is that ideas have no fathers. But ideas are thought up by someone. For example, the concept of placing a sculpture on the ground without a plinth was one of Judd’s ideas; it is now very common and no one is aware of this. Another one of his ideas was the concept of the installation, the use of the whole space. Many artists devalue this idea. Once again there is no discussion at all and mediocre works are created. Art historians who are concerned with the past are at least still interested in chronology, those who work with contemporary art are not, and they see art as the subject for their own speculations.
Artist Donald Judd (1928 – 1994) held the 1993 Mondrian Lecture called ‘Some aspects of colour in general and red and black in particular’.
“One could consider that the choices made are like a paradox. It can be seen as a paradox for the painter to not choose the color of his canvas, but I want the charge-taker to decide, since ultimately he has to live with it.”— Claude Rutault
Claude Rutault was a French both minimalist and conceptual artist, best known for the original way of expression he created and named definition-method, which is basically a manual how to create his art piece.
Installation view of After the Masters: A Tribute to Claude Rutault (1941–2022) at Musée d’Orsay, 2023
“The whole thing [about] art and money is ridiculous. The value of a painting at auction is not necessarily the value of the painting. It’s the value of two people bidding against each other because they really want the painting.”
If a painting is created mainly to match a luxurious interior rather than to express something deeply personal or challenge ideas, then it leans more toward decorative art, even if it’s technically a painting. It becomes part of the decor rather than a standalone statement.
That raises an interesting question—does the intent of the artist or the way the artwork is used define whether it’s fine art or decorative art? If someone paints with raw emotion and meaning but it ends up as a luxury wall piece, does that change what it is?
Especially with modern abstract painting—it’s everywhere in high-end homes, hotels, and corporate spaces. A lot of it seems designed to be aesthetically pleasing but not too thought-provoking, so it blends into the environment rather than demanding attention. It feels like abstraction has been commercialized into a luxury good rather than a form of deep expression, at least in many cases.
Of course, that doesn’t mean all abstract art today is purely decorative. There are still artists pushing boundaries and using abstraction in meaningful ways. But a lot of what sells seems to be more about fitting a vibe than saying something.
