Dezeen Magazine

Michael Craig-Martin's Transience exhibition traces the evolution of electronic product design

In his first solo show in 26 years, artist Michael Craig-Martin presents graphic depictions of three decades of electronic goods at London's Serpentine Gallery (+ slideshow).

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

The Transience exhibition brings together works created by the 74-year-old artist over the past 30 years, and documents the development of technology from the light bulb and battery to the Macbook.

Now-defunct items such the cassette tape and the black-and-white television are shown alongside images of more recent technology such as an X-Box controller and Apple's iPhone.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

Each of the objects is portrayed through minimal line drawings, filled with bright contrasting colours. An incandescent light bulb is shown in red, green and blue, on a pink background, while a side view of a wireless computer mouse is depicted in pastel green and pink.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

"When I started drawing these ordinary, everyday objects in the 1970s, I thought they were pretty stable in the world," said Craig-Martin. "I assumed they would not change over time."

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

"I realise now that the things I was drawing were objects that had been designed or invented in the period dominated by the principle of form follows function... today this is much less true," he added.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

Two of the Serpentine's galleries have been painted green and pink, to echo the colours of Craig-Martin's work, and another room is covered in an overlapping wallpaper design created for the exhibition.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

A sculpture featuring an oversized pink outline of a light bulb has also been designed for the Serpentine, and is on display outside the gallery.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

"One of the things that struck us was the transformation from the analogue age to the digital age, which of course I've recorded, because I have kept drawing the things around me," said the artist.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

"While in the pre-technological age I occasionally represented a black-and-white portable television or a tape cassette, with the recent work there is a sudden acceleration and there are 15 or 20 paintings of technological objects – laptops, iPhones, memory sticks, and so on," he added.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

"Craig-Martin's acute observations present an extraordinary picture of recent developments in the production, processes, functions and form of the objects that populate our world," said gallery director and co-director Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich-Obrist.

"His work reveals a search for the ultimate expression of contemporaneity in a way that we all experience – through the items we use every day," they added.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

Dezeen has filmed a series of interviews with Peyton-Jones about the gallery's annual architectural pavilion commission, to celebrate its 15th anniversary.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery

The Transience exhibition opened on 25 November 2015 and continues until 14 February 2016 at the Serpentine Gallery in London's Kensington Gardens.