Martin Creed: Things

Martin Creed has returned home. Greeting us at the artist's first solo exhibition in Glasgow is not a typical gallery space but the front door of a residence: 12 Woodlands Terrace. Appropriate not only as a parallel to Creed's relationship with the city but also as a setting for the domesticity of Things, within the familiarity of a living space, we are led to subvert our expectations of normality as conversions to the rudimentary becomes commonplace.

Struggling to push the door wide enough open to enter room 1, this simple task disrupts the ease of the mundane. It reveals itself as 'Work No. 115'; in a subtle twist, a doorstop prevents the door from opening further than 45 degrees. From one contortion to another, before we have time enough to appreciate the sunlight bathing us from the bay window, we are swiftly submerged into a morning's darkness as the curtains close. This mechanical opening and closing becomes a colossal experience, as the simplest opposites of light and dark are celebrated.

Aware that in viewing the exhibition we could at any moment encounter a piece of work, readable as even a small glitch in the expected, the experience is alive with pregnant potential. 'An intrusion and protrusion' placed on the corner of meeting walls, is sculpturally stunning. In Creed's work simplicity and beauty collide as attention is drawn to objects and regulations that don't usually receive such consideration. The ordering of plants on a shelf and the stacking of tables are surprisingly enlightening, offering a new perspective for our consumption.

This homecoming bears all the hallmarks of domesticity that one would expect from Creed, gifting the viewer with the familiarity of the home setting. It becomes easier to see the rich humour of the work, the poetics and the nuances that might have been lost in a more clinical environment. The duet of subtler works alongside monumental experiences becomes a contrast and balance in itself, with the two  played expertly. Creed is an important artist of our generation, whose attention to the materials we habitually disregard allows his work to reverberate through our everyday lives long after we've left the exhibition; this is art at its greatest.