‘Half the air in a given space’ is one of Creed’s most celebrated works. First conceived in 1998 and subsequently created around the world, it involves a multitude of balloons which contain half of the air in a room. Acting as a tangible measure of the air, this playful inversion of art and space invites visitors to enter and change the work’s shape and volume themselves. It is a sculpture which takes the shape of the space between people and things, joining them together in the shared space.

Martin Creed is a Turner Prize-winning visual artist, performer, composer and ‘punk poet’. For Creed, there is no border between life and art. In the process of, in his words, ‘trying to live life better’, his playful and open-ended approach leads to the use of many different forms of expression across many disciplines. With the application of rigorous logic his works are developed to a point of sublime absurdity.

Creed’s monument to ‘WATER, Work No. 3667,’ was on view in Menorca in 2022, when the artist also presented an evening of words and music.

‘It’s just a normal situation. As usual, the space is full of air, but half of it is inside balloons.’ -Martin Creed

Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.