No one can accuse Tate Britain of failing to make the running with its latest installation.

Work No 850 is the latest piece by Martin Creed, who has been commissioned to fill the long space known as the Duveen Galleries. For the next four months, people will sprint as fast as they can through the gallery at 30-second intervals. Fifty amateurs are each being paid £10 an hour to dash through the Tate – each sprint lasts about 15 seconds.

Although the Tate dismissed talk of a high-speed collision with visitors or exhibits in the 86m gallery, visitors will not be allowed to have a go “because it’s not safe”. The runners will be working four-hour shifts – half an hour on, half an hour off.

Creed was inspired by having run through the catacombs of the Capuchin monks in Palermo at closing time: “I thought, ‘Why do you have to look at paintings for a long time? Why not look for a second?’. Sometimes when you go around museums you feel it is quite a laborious task.”

He denied his work was pretentious, saying: “To me, it is music.” The artist, who won the Turner Prize for The Lights Going on and off, said: “It is literally not pretentious because they are not pretending to run.” He added: “It is not for me to say what it is about. This is something to look at, just like a painting.” Through the Tate’s human resources section, Creed advertised for participants, and is searching for more.

A Slade School graduate, he made his name scrunching up a sheet of paper, attaching a blob of Blu-Tack to a wall and placing a stack of a few tiles next to a lavatory. His work, which sells for up to £100,000, is about the qualities of nothing, he has said.

Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain, said that Creed was in the tradition of artists who have responded to the human figure. “His is a depiction of the human physique,” he said.

Yesterday, after barely an hour, a couple of the participants could not conceal the strain of running on a marble and granite surface.

On being told about the project, a contender for the 1,500m at the Beijing Olympics said that he would not want to take part in anything like it. “It is more strain on the hamstrings,” Andy Baddeley said. “If it is polished, it will be slippery. It depends on how good their shoes are . . . If it is a significant distance, it would take on toll on their joints.”

Visitors to the gallery were unsure about the new work. “It is not April 1, is it?” asked Ross Cowie, from Bolton. “Art? Sorry, absolutely not,” said Adelphine Ivans, from New Jersey. Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, said: “I feel so depressed every time I hear of another of these stunts.”

Laurence Kirmayer, a psychiatrist from Montreal, thought it looked like a “Nike commercial”. Puma, the rival company, would be dismayed: it is one of the exhibition’s sponsors, and runners are promoting its sportswear.

IS IT ART?

Yes

by Rachel Campbell-Johnston

Martin Creed releases a runner to race through Tate Britain at regular intervals. Where’s the art in that? Is it in the Puma-clad person who suddenly speeds past you? Or in the elegant stone spaces across which he dashes?

These are probably all part of Work No 850, but the mainstay of this piece is a simple adjustment of pace. It is the difference between the gallery-goer’s stroll and the track-runner’s sprint. It is this acceleration that makes us briefly see the world in a new way.

You cannot help but admire the economy of Creed’s technique. It has a minimalist elegance, but then this is only to be expected. Creed is a master of concision. His works have the quick-witted efficiency of a short cut.

Work No 850 raises myriad possibilities. Is it a simple celebration of vitality? A paean of praise to the human anatomy? A live version of classical statuary? Does Creed want to question the way that we look at art? We presume we should solemnly linger; but here is a fast-mood alternative for our busy modern age. Or maybe the piece is about our Olympic bid? Or there to remind us that we are a nation of fatties? All these interpretations can be raised by a tiny change of pace.

The possibilities continue to pile up. And then they tumble. Talk about pompous: it’s just someone running! It’s not art. It’s ridiculous. You pause, panting, to take stock. And there, up ahead of you, cool as a cucumber, is Creed. He took the short cut and got there first. You cannot help but grin. This is a lovely piece of work. It feels as silly, reckless, exhilarating and wonderful as running very fast for no particular reason. It makes you feel more alive. What more can you want?

Rachel Campbell-Johnston is chief art critic of The Times

No

by David Lee

When the Olympics start, Martin Creed will be slobbering on his sofa because, he says, “I’ve always really liked watching people run.” Some people really like watching trains but, unlike Creed, they have the good manners and modesty to keep it to themselves.

The Turner Prize winner has put some sprinters in the Duveen Galleries in the hope that we will “find something in it”. What a feeble, non-committal utterance this is for a supposedly conceptual artist. The concepts in most conceptual art are frequently extremely small ones barely worth the illustration. Now, we are presented with a work in which there is not even a concept. We must make one up for ourselves. If we are good at that we might pat ourselves on the back and declare it a masterpiece.

This is a useful stunt for Creed and the Tate, who both thrive more on publicity than on content and profundity. Creed is made visible again after a period in the wilderness. Meanwhile, the Tate gives the impression to its philistine masters in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that it is a vital institution.

The runners also help with the problem of low attendance at Tate Britain. While at Tate Modern, thanks to some notable recent stunts, visitor numbers are alleged to have risen dramatically, attendance at Millbank lags way behind, well under half that of its sibling. This will doubtless help to swell attendances.

The visual arts should not be immune to the belt-tightening required from the rest of us, so may I suggest that those enlisted to sprint around the Tate recover their breath by reclining for an hour on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square, thus killing two stunts with one stone.

David Lee is editor of The Jackdaw

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