Pink Room with Handcuffs and Filing Cabinet
Michael Craig-Martin, 1993

This piece is a fine example of the artist's work of the early 1990s. In these works the gallery walls are saturated in uniformly applied paint of a single, intense colour to create a colour-field in which one or two everyday objects are outlined in narrow black tape and filled in with blocks of flat colour. This particular work incorporates images of a filing cabinet with one drawer open and a pair of handcuffs on shocking-pink walls. The juxtaposition of these objects invites and provokes the invention of narratives which might link them together, thereby increasing awareness of one's participation in the viewing process. Additionally, the architectural features of the gallery space, its doorways, skirting-boards, plug sockets, and vent grilles become integral elements of the work and establish yet another dialogue, in this case between the real and the represented.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Pink Room with Handcuffs and Filing Cabinet, 1993
Date supported
1996
Medium and material
Paint & black tape
Dimensions
600 x 300 x 230 cm
Grant
3000
Total cost
12000

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