The British artist and Royal Academician Michael Craig-Martin unveiled his largest sculpture to date at The Peninsula hotel this week. Bright Idea (2016) is a vivid yellow 4m-tall steel sculpture of the outline of a lightbulb that rises from behind the fountain in the hotel’s forecourt. “The hotel is an unbelievably grand setting with a row of Rolls Royces usually parked outside,” Craig-Martin says. “The sculpture had to hold its own in this context.”
The artist, who taught Damien Hirst and the Young British Artists at Goldsmiths College in London, says he tried two other concepts before settling on the lightbulb: an umbrella and a high-heeled shoe (he has made sculptures depicting all three objects before). “I decided on a lightbulb because it’s a beautiful, simple object with associations of light and heat. But there’s also that reference to having an idea,” he says.
Craig-Martin’s powder-coated steel sculptures are usually installed in rural landscapes; 12 were embedded in the grounds of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire in 2014. The Peninsula’s urban location was “more of a challenge”, the artist says, but one he enjoyed tackling.
Gagosian Gallery is showing a group of around five new paintings by Craig-Martin in the hotel’s lobby—one of which depicts a lightbulb. The gallery declined to give prices.
