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TE2/1977/4

Michael Craig-Martin – Exhibition Installation 1977 (Part 3)

Michael Craig-Martin RA is a contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is noted for his fostering of the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. Jal Milroy recalls the flooding in the main gallery during the installation period of this exhibition. All attempts to stem the water failed until Milroy had the idea to adopt a strategy similar to one of the main pieces on display by Craig-Martin in which four buckets are suspended on floating base. Milroy placed a bucket on a platform that could be hoisted up into the ceiling where it collected the water and could later be lowered and emptied.

Date Recorded: 1977

Length: 14 min, 08 sec

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Additional Information

Exhibition installation. Begins with a cut, a view of the exterior of the Third Eye Centre on Sauchiehall Street. There is no sound that accompanies the image of pedestrians walking past. As the handheld camera moves towards the façade of the building, text on the window reveals the exhibition being shown in the gallery: Michael Craig-Martin. The windows also advertises an artist talk. The camera follows a man in jacket through the front door and into the foyer of the Third Eye Centre. The camera then moves past a reception desk and into the left of 2 open doors. This is access to the Third Eye Centre's main gallery spaces. The camera journeys towards the elongated gallery space at the back end of the building where Craig-Martin's exhibition is being installed. Cuts, pans and zooms then occur in what appears to be a partially darkened space. There is a focus on the neon lighting fixtures on the walls, 3 men working on different aspects of the installation. Some brief tracking issues with the camera allows the sound to finally cut in and out at different intervals, introducing sounds of construction and installation. There is some filming from the top of a ladder looking down onto the space. Ends on a pan and zoom out from a neon-lit arrow on a wall, towards a group of buckets suspended from the ceiling on a wooden platform. A chair and trolley can be seen in the background.