An Oak Tree
Encyclopedia
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
created by Michael Craig-Martin
Michael Craig-Martin
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...
RA in 1973. The piece consists of two units; an object, a glass of water on a glass shelf, and a text. The text takes the form of a Q&A about the artwork, in which Craig-Martin describes changing "a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents
Accident (philosophy)
Accident, as used in philosophy, is an attribute which may or may not belong to a subject, without affecting its essence. The word "accident" has been employed throughout the history of philosophy with several distinct meanings....
of the glass of water," and explains that "the actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water." Craig-Martin considered "the work of art in such a way as to reveal its single basic and essential element, belief that is the confident faith of the artist in his capacity to speak and the willing faith of the viewer in accepting what he has to say".
The original is in the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
and an artist's copy is in the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
gallery.
Artwork
An Oak Tree is a work of artWork of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
created by Michael Craig-Martin
Michael Craig-Martin
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...
in 1973, and is now exhibited with the accompanying text, originally issued as a leaflet. The text is in red print on white; the object is a French Duralex glass, which contains water to a level stipulated by the artist and which is located on a glass shelf, whose ideal height is 253 centimetres with matte grey-painted brackets screwed to the wall. The text is behind glass and is fixed to the wall with four bolts. Craig-Martin has stressed that the components should maintain a pristine appearance and in the event of deterioration, the brackets should be resprayed and the glass and shelf even replaced.
The text contains a semiotic argument, in the form of questions and answers, which explain that it is not a glass of water, but "a full-grown oak tree," created "without altering the accidents of the glass of water." The text defines accidents as "The colour, feel, weight, size...". The text includes the statement "It's not a symbol. I have changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree. I didn't change its appearance. The actual oak tree is physically present, but in the form of a glass of water." and "It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree"
The impossible is deliberately asserted and the text examines the impossibility of the assertion, which uses the idea of transubstantiation
Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood, respectively, of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.The Eastern Orthodox...
in the same way as the Catholic religious belief that bread and wine, while maintaining an unchanged appearance, are changed into Christ's body and blood. Craig-Martin has a Catholic background and was an altar boy. He sees belief of both artist and viewer as having a key place in art, and that in An Oak Tree he had "deconstructed the work of art in such a way as to reveal its single basic and essential element", namely this belief.
An Oak Tree was a turning point in his artistic development: prior to it his concern had been deconstruction, and afterwards he was "trying to put the pieces together again." Subsequently, using the rationale of Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
's Fountain
Fountain (Duchamp)
Fountain is a 1917 work by Marcel Duchamp. It is one of the pieces which he called readymades. In such pieces he made use of an already existing object. In this case Duchamp used a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt". Readymades also go by the term Found object...
, he worked with drawings of utilitarian objects and flat areas of colour, with the goal of discarding meaning, which is "both persistent and unstable", although he states that people's need to create associations and meanings makes this goal unachievable.
History
An Oak Tree was first shown in an exhibition of Craig-Martin's work at the Rowan Gallery, off Bond StreetBond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
, London, in 1974. Many visitors assumed that Craig-Martin was playing the ultimate con trick, as there seemed no evidence of work on display in the white-walled gallery. However, high up on a wall was the glass of water and the glass shelf of the work An Oak Tree. At this time the accompanying text was available as a leaflet.
The original was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
in Canberra in 1977; an artist's copy is on loan to the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
gallery in London from a private collection.
Craig-Martin said, "An Oak Tree has had a great life as an artwork. It is nearly always on view somewhere, and has been shown all over the world—the text has been translated into at least 20 languages. The only place it has never been shown is in the US."
It was once barred by Australian officials from entering the country as "vegetation". Craig-Martin was forced to inform them that it was really a glass of water. He said, "It was of course a wonderfully funny incident, particularly because it extended into 'real life' the discussion about belief and doubt, and fact and fiction I was addressing in the work."
Critical reaction
An Oak Tree is a celebrated artwork, which the Irish Museum of Modern ArtIrish Museum of Modern Art
The Irish Museum of Modern Art also known as IMMA, is Ireland's leading national institution exhibiting and collecting modern and contemporary art. The museum opened in May 1991 and is located in Royal Hospital Kilmainham, a 17th-century building near Heuston Station to the west of Dublin's city...
says is now recognized as a turning point in the development of conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
, although initially it was met with surprise, if not scorn. It has been described as "questioning the nature of reality."
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy states that "to fail to consider it a great work of art because it fails to give rise to a distinctively aesthetic kind of pleasure does not actually undermine the project at all. Conceptual art, as we now know, is about conveying meaning through a vehicular medium, and not to provide its audience with experiences of, say, beauty. Any attack on this fundamental feature of conceptual art targets not so much an individual piece but the artform as such."
In his Richard Dimbleby Lecture
Richard Dimbleby Lecture
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture was founded in the memory of Richard Dimbleby, the BBC broadcaster. It has been delivered by an influential business or political figure almost every year since 1972 ....
on 23 November 2000, Sir Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...
said, "We may not 'like' Craig-Martin's work, but it certainly reminds us that the appreciation of all art involves an act of faith comparable to the belief that, through transubstantiation
Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood, respectively, of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.The Eastern Orthodox...
, the bread and wine of Holy Communion become the body and blood of Christ."
Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
said, "That piece is, I think, the greatest piece of conceptual sculpture, I still can't get it out of my head." Richard Cork
Richard Cork
Dr Richard Cork is a British art historian, editor, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator. He has been an art critic for the Evening Standard, The Listener, The Times and the New Statesman. Cork was also editor for Studio International. He is a past Turner Prize judge.-Life and work:Richard...
called its original display in 1974 "one of the most challenging moments" of contemporary art.
Anthony Caro
Anthony Caro
Sir Anthony Alfred Caro, OM, CBE is an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects.-Background and early life:...
said, "Some of the stuff that's called art is just damned stupid. I mean, 'That glass of water's an oak tree' kind of thing." Art critic David Lee
David Lee (art critic)
David Lee is an outspoken, English, contemporary, art critic—condemning conceptual art in general and the Turner Prize in particular...
and the founders of the Stuckism
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
art movement, Billy Childish
Billy Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
and Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
also oppose it.
In response to Nigel Gosling's praise of the work, Giles Auty said, "How would the self-same critic react if, on ordering oak planks for an outhouse, he were sent instead a bucketful of water? Would he gently muse on 'the subtle and obscure waters of identity'—or make immediate reflections on the mental wellbeing of his timber suppliers?" Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...
asked why "the miracle" was "a work of art fit only for a gallery, and not some thaumaturgical object venerated in a church?"
Michael Daley
ArtWatch International
ArtWatch International was founded by James Beck, professor of art history at Columbia University, to monitor, and campaign for better practices in, the conservation of art works...
wrote that the work was "not a hard-won, skilful depiction of a glass and a shelf" and that for twenty years "instead of ridiculing the self-deluding, pretentious offerings of Craig-Martin and his like, critics fawned and eulogised."