martin creed

Article in Giornale Dell'Arte, January 2000

(English Translation)

The Year 2000: Everything is going to be alright

It’s said that modern art is born of profound formal and ideological disturbances, and that contemporary art is the bearer of unease, anxiety and confusion.  But this isn’t always the case: “Everything is going to be alright”, says this luminous installation by Martin Creed in the East End of London.  Yes, the third millenium has arrived, and the English artist guarantees us that it’s not going to be the end of the world – no Bruce Willis will have to save us from a meteorite gone crazy that’s about to destroy the earth, the invading aliens will be peaceful, no head of state will be pressing the red button of atomic war; moreover the millenium bug won’t be so devastating, the rate of inflation will fall, unemployment will drop bit by bit, the hole in the ozone layer will patch up and somebody might disappear, but, as Lucio Dalla says, “there will always be people who are too sly or moronic in any era”.  Everything is going to be alright: let’s just say, if not an absolute certainty, for us at the Giornale dell’Arte, it’s something that we’d like to wish for all our readers, sent from the pages of the first issue of the new “Vernissage”, the first novelty of the newly born millenium.