Damien Hirst

Selflessness, from the Secrets

2024

Martin Creed Everything's Going to be Alright (Work No. 3531), 2022 Color giclee print; unframed and housed in a bespoke archival box from Hauser & Wirth 11 3/4 × 16 1/2 inches Pencil signed, titled and numbered 141/200 Makes a perfect gift! Provenance: Hauser & Wirth, at The Fife Arms (Beaemar Castle) A wonderful print with an affirmation worth seeing in any room in the house! Note: this work is pencil signed and numbered from the limited edition of 200, and it comes inside of a bespoke box, as it was first issued by Hauser Wirth. The number shown in the image here may not be the number you receive. In 2020, as part of the post-lockdown re-opening celebrations for Scotland's Fife Arms, Hauser Wirth's owners unveiled a specially commissioned temporary neon installation, ‘Work No. 3435: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT’ by one of their favorite artists, Turner Prize-winner Martin Creed. This colorful installation was situated on the grounds of nearby Braemar Castle. The message resonates well beyond the pandemic. It makes a terrific gift. (Martin Creed, who grew up in Glasgow, is particularly known in Scotland for the much-loved Scotsman Steps in Edinburgh, a public staircase joining two streets made with more than a hundred different types of marble. A work in blue neon, ‘Work No. 975: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT’, has been on view since 2012 on the facade of the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. The phrase ‘Everything is going to be alright’ has been used by the artist in a series of large-scale neon works since 1999 and draws on the comforting words Creed was offered by a friend. He explains, “If you are upset and someone speaks to you to try to help you, even if the words are empty because no one knows what is going to happen in the future, it can still feel like a comfort. No-one can really tell you everything is going to be alright, but despite that, many times in my life I have been very comforted by people saying something like that to me.”) And all this brings us back to the present work, a limited edition 2022 color giclee print, pencil signed and numbered by Martin Creed, which depicts Creed's pandemic-era temporary light installation with the neon words Everything is Going to Be Alright, against the backdrop of Braemar Castle at nightfall. This edition was originally sold by Hauser Wirth via the Fife Arms to raise funds to restore Braemar Castle - and it quickly sold out. It's a poignant message that continues to resonate, perhaps now more than ever - and it would look beautiful in any home or office. But the question remains: Should we really believe Martin Creed's message? The answer is a resounding Yes. Coming from some of the most successful and lucky people on earth (Martin Creed and Manuela and Iwan Wirth) and carrying the magical energy and history of Braemar Castle, the odds are looking pretty good that everything is indeed going to be alright with all that positivity! By the way, just for fun (because why not?) keep scrolling (right arrow to the right of the main image) to view a 2019 photograph of King Charles and Queen Camilla (then officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay when in Scotland) attending the opening of The Fife Arms, with Manuela and Iwan Wirth standing next to them on the left - all in Highland dress. More about Martin Creed: British sculptor and installation artist. He was born in Wakefield, grew up in Scotland, and studied at the *Slade School of Art. His works are generally sparse in their material form and are identified only by numbers so as not to impose associations. (For this reason his numbering system avoids the portentous No. 1.) He is best known for the work for which he was awarded the *Turner Prize in 2002, Work no. 227 (2000, MoMA, New York). An entire room is alternately lit and darkened by electric light. It is a way of making a work of art which has no material existence: the light and the darkness are not themselves the art, only the change between them. This is a work which has entered the mythology of ‘modern art’ stories: the river boat guide tells the tourists (quite incorrectly) as they pass *Tate Modern: about the empty room...

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