Visitor Information
This exhibition is now closed.
There is no admission fee to visit The Gallery at Windsor. Exhibition visitors are invited to support The Windsor Charitable Foundation with a suggested donation of $10. This gift is tax-deductible and is designated to support local arts education.
About the Exhibition
In 2019, The Gallery at Windsor presented British artist and Royal Academician Sir Michael Craig-Martin in his most comprehensive exhibition in the Unites States at that time. Comprising more than 35 paintings, sculptures, prints and editions, the exhibition entitled Present Sense was the second annual exhibition at Windsor in a three-year curatorial collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
On the heels of the immensely popular Grayson Perry exhibition, Making Meaning in 2018, Craig-Martin was the first artist to present an outdoor installation at Windsor in The Gallery’s then 17-year exhibition history. The Craig-Martin exhibition builds on the exhibition program at The Gallery of presenting thought-provoking works by some of the leading contemporary artists of our time.
The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, Windsor co-founder and Creative Director for The Gallery at Windsor, Christopher Le Brun, painter and former President of the Royal Academy, and Tim Marlow, former Artistic Director of the Royal Academy selected the 2018-2020 exhibition series.
Present Sense was curated by Hannah Freedberg, Director at Gagosian London. The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, audio tour and outdoor sculpture tour video.
About the Artist
Throughout his career Michael Craig-Martin has produced work in a variety of media. He explores the nature and basic principles of visual language and our perceptions using everyday objects, images and materials. The body of his work has become a comprehensive record of the objects of our time.
In recent years, he has focused on the technological objects that have come to dominate and define contemporary living. His style is easily recognized by rigorously precise line drawings combined with his characteristic use of intensely vibrant colors.
Craig-Martin taught at Goldsmiths College School of Art, London (1974 to 1988, 1994 to 2000) and became a powerful influence on a generation of his students who would become known as the Young British Artists or YBAs, including Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas.
His memoir On Being An Artist was published in 2015 and is a wonderful read particularly for aspiring artists. For a decade (1989 to 1999) Craig-Martin served as a Tate Artist Trustee and was closely involved in the development of Tate Modern. He was awarded a CBE in 2000, elected as a Royal Academician in 2006 and knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honors for his services to art in 2016.
Craig-Martin is represented by Gagosian and Alan Cristea Gallery.
Publication
Michael Craig-Martin
Present Sense
$23
ISBN: 978-1-912520-15-2, paperback, 80 pages, 35 illustrations, published by Windsor Press and the Royal Academy of Arts, first edition (January 2019).
Overview
Born in Ireland, Sir Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA studied in America. A childhood obsession with classic American cars was replaced as a teenager with a love for art, although images of the American everyday continue to appear in his work. On returning to the UK, he became a key figure in British conceptual art and an influential educator, linked in particular to the Young British Artists including Damien Hirst and Gary Hume RA.
Craig-Martin cites his ‘rationalism’ as the root of his practice. His works transform recognizable objects – sneakers, headphones, watches and, most recently, Modernist buildings – with bold color and simplified lines.
Craig-Martin is the latest subject of a three-year curatorial partnership between The Gallery at Windsor, Florida, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, initiated to celebrate the latter’s 250th anniversary. This book reproduces a selection of his paintings, prints and sculptures, with a foreword by The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, an insightful essay by the art critic Ben Luke and an exclusive interview between Tim Marlow, Artistic Director at the RA, and the artist.