Martin John Callanan, (born 1982 in Solihull, West Midlands) is a British conceptual artist working in Scotland. He taught at the Slade School of Fine Art from 2008-2019. Key exhibitions include White Cube Mason's Yard, Or Gallery, Berlin, Casal Solleric, Spain, Whitechapel Gallery, London,

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Whitstable Biennale. In 2013 Callanan was awarded the

Philip Leverhulme Prize The Philip Leverhulme Prize is awarded by the Leverhulme Trust to recognise the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising. The prize schem ...

, an award for young academic researchers. Callanan worked with the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government o ...

for 12 months from July 2015, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Artworks

Well known artworks include, "The Fundamental Units", a collaboration with the National Physical Laboratory imaging the world's lowest domination coins to massive scale using the latest microscopes. ''I Wanted to See All of the News From Today'', a web based program collecting front covers of newspapers from around the world, won an Honorary mention (best online project) at Live 2011 Grand Prix ( Finland), and a finalist for both File Prix Lux ( Brazil), and Screengrab 2010 Award, (Australia) Callanan legally changed his name by deed poll from Martin John Callanan to Martin John Callanan in 2008 and again in 2012. The latter performance, which involved a magistrate visiting the gallery, took place at the London Open at the Whitechapel Gallery, London: curator Kirsty Ogg said "It highlights the fact that there is a particular bureaucratic process that we're all subject to but are not necessarily aware of". The 2012 Whitstable Biennale commissioned ''Wars During my Lifetime'', about which New Statesman wrote: ''"A simple idea with high impact is Wars During my Lifetime by Martin John Callanan, which lists on

newsprint Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada, it usually has a ...

all the wars that have taken place during his lifetime."''. A

town crier A town crier, also called a bellman, is an officer of a royal court or public authority who makes public pronouncements as required. Duties and functions The town crier was used to make public announcements in the streets. Criers often dress ...

proclaimed the list along the seafront. For another artwork, published by

Book Works Book Works is a London-based publisher of books on contemporary visual arts, and print studio specialising in bookbinding, letterpress printing, boxmaking, and printmaking. Established in 1984, it has "the mission to disseminate visual art practic ...

he sent letters to several world leaders saying "I respect your authority" and published replies by figures including Hosni Mubarak; critic

Jonathan Jones (journalist) Jonathan Jones is a British art critic who has written for ''The Guardian'' since 1999. He has appeared in the BBC television series ''Private Life of a Masterpiece'' and in 2009 was a judge for the Turner Prize. He has also been a judge for th ...

found the work humorous but struggled to find any point to it: ''"He sent out a letter to various presidents saying, "I respect your authority." Amazingly, he got loads of replies. Hosni Mubarak seemed genuinely flattered. You laugh. Then you laugh again, but not so loud. Then you stop laughing and wonder what the point is. That world leaders are rather polite?"'' He has also produced an artwork out of his social media status where every update since 2007 has read "Martin John Callanan is okay". "Location of I" published Callanan's precise physical location every second for two years from 2007. The artwork was commissioned during a six-month residency at

RIXC The Centre for new media culture in Riga (RIXC) is the joint effort of a number of independent local Latvian cultural groups working in the fields of new media, art, film, music, youth culture and the social projects. The founders of RIXC are ...

in Latvia. It was presented at "9th international festival Art+Communication held in Liepaja.

Other works

While working at UCL Environment Institute he collaborated with science writer

Richard Hamblyn Richard Hamblyn (born 1965) is a British environmental writer and historian. He is a lecturer in the Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and has contributed articles and reviews to the ''Sunday T ...

on a number of projects, documented in their book ''Data Soliloquies'' (Slade Press, 2009, ). ''A Planetary Order'' (2009) combines satellite images into an advanced sculpture made using high-end

3D Printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

, to show the planet earth covered in

clouds In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may comp ...

. (Subscription required) ''Text Trends'' was based on Google searches for terms related to climate change over a five years.

References

External links

greyisgood official website

Personal Twitter

Slade Centre for Electronic Media

Rhizome Artbase Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Callanan, Martin John 1982 births Academics of University College London Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art English performance artists British conceptual artists English contemporary artists English installation artists Living people People from Solihull New media artists Photographers from Warwickshire