Als jij van mening bent dat conceptuele kunst ruk is, dan is Martin Creed zo doof als een kwartel. Hij won de Turner Prize een paar jaar geleden met een installatie genaamd “The lights going on and off”. Het was een lege kamer waar de lichten aan en uit gingen. Maar goed, na een tijdje rustig aan gedaan te hebben is Martin Creed terug met twee shows, eentje opent vanavond en heeft te maken met Sonic Youth en David Cunningham. We spraken de kunstenaar even snel.

Is it exciting to be back on the art scene again? You kind of went away for a while.

I can’t really ever get away from myself, I’ve always been here. But it’s nice to talk a lot about work and I quite like to do interviews and stuff like that. I consider doing that to be just as much work making the actual art.

Do you find when you talk about it you start to realise different things about the art.

Absolutely. If work is produced in a magazine, I consider that to be another piece of work in itself. And I like that I learn something about it every time. Like it is one thing to have a sculpture. And then to see a photo of it in a book becomes something else. I guess it’s the way that the work gets used by the people. That’s the work working. And it’s always different. So what I’m saying is I guess that talking about work is work itself. I don’t think its possible to talk about anything but yourself, you know.

Do you get sick of talking about yourself?

Sometimes yeah I do. I sometimes get sick of myself and think I’m a bit of a wanker. I do.  Everyone is the centre of their own world. 

When was the last time you were actually sick.

The last time was quite recently. I was on a plane coming back to London from New York. I woke up, having fallen asleep and suddenly felt really sick. I looked around and grabbed the first thing I saw because I couldn’t find a sick bag, so I grabbed a plastic bag. So I was vomiting into this bag, and I remember distinctly thinking how familiar the sound was. I remember thinking “I know this sound, god this is what it feels like”. It somewhat demystified that role that had been played for my art.

What did you do with the bag?

Well I just had to hold onto it for ages, and I suddenly realised that it had holes in the bottom of the bag so it started dripping all over my legs. Yeah it was pretty gross.

* Martin Creed is in a solo show at the Hauser & Wirth Gallery in East London and is in a group show starting tonight at Nog Gallery called “Hot for Teacher” with artists such as Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and David Cunningham.