Disciple of Duchamp

Michael Craig-Martin has had a paradoxical career. He is, I think, a disciple of Marcel Duchamp. But the latter famously gave up painting in favour of something more conceptual — ready-mades and whatnot — whereas Craig-Martin began with Duchampian concepts. He once exhibited a glass of water on a shelf together with a claim that he had mentally transformed these, by a kind of transubstantiation, into an oak tree. Then he metamorphosed himself into a still-life painter.

As his current exhibition at the Serpentine demonstrates, for nearly 40 years Craig-Martin’s staple subject-matter has been everyday tools, gadgets and accessories. An early example, ‘Vertigo’ (1981), consists of elegantly pared-down line drawings of a tin-opener, cassette tape, briefcase, book, plastic sandal and refrigerator ice-cube tray spread out in a fan-shaped flourish on the wall.

These oddments differ from many more traditional painterly themes in an interesting way: they are liable to become obsolete. Making predictions is tricky, especially — as Sam Goldwyn noted — about the future, but it is hard to envision an era in which the apples, glasses of wine or bunches of flowers favoured by still-life masters such as Chardin will have been superseded.