Cleveland Museum of Art announces Contemporary Art Installation By Martin Creed of Work No. 965. Half the air, on view September 30 through November 25, 2012.
Martin Creed, one of Great Britain’s most acclaimed contemporay artists, has been described as an “epicsculpture/installation/happening.” The all-inclusive list attempts to classify an artwork that is versatile in essence and cannot be pinned down as one specific genre.
First created by Creed in 1998 with white balloons as Work No. 200 and then proposed indifferent colors in subsequent years, Work No. 965 (2008) comprises purple balloons, 11 inches in diameter. The sculpture is installed, based on the artist’s instructions, to fill half a room’s entire volume with air-inflated balloons and to let the viewers walk in. Now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the work marks a passage in the history of this institution: it offers a stronger link than any other object between the museum’s visual arts collection and its performing arts programs. Half the air in a given space debuts in the museum’s southeast corner gallery, a tall cubic room enclosed in glass on three sides.
This pivotal architectural moment invites insight on the original 1916 museum building as it connects to the new East wing and Atrium. Following a four-year-long display of figures and busts by Auguste Rodin, Half the air in a given space replaces the sculptures with audience members in motion, in plain sight, mixing with the balloons. – www.clevelandart.org