In 1973, Michael Craig-Martin set a water glass on a shelf high on a gallery wall. The arrangement was called An Oak Tree and included wall text that asked viewers to resist the temptation to think it was a glass of water. No, it was indeed an oak tree.

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The radical act is still one of Britain’s definitive conceptual artworks. It has remained a deceptively simple but bold meditation on “transubstantiation,” the idea that imbuing an earthly object with astral meaning—much like red wine becoming the Blood of Christ in Christianity—is possible for us.

Everyday ephemera, from water glasses to discarded coffee cups, continues to be an enduring passion in Craig-Martin’s robust artistic playbook. The artist, now six decades into his practice, is the subject of a buzzy new retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts (R.A.), London. The 120 featured works range from early conceptual efforts like An Oak Tree and On the Table (1970) to garish exercises that recolor cell phones and safety pins on the canvas. There’s also an entirely new piece, Cosmos, which digitizes past artworks into an immersive video display.

“He is one of the most prominent artists working today in the country,” Axel Rüger, R.A. secretary and chief executive, tells Observer. Craig-Martin has been accorded the rare honor of a retrospective while still alive in the R.A.’s palatial galleries, and it’s one comprehensive survey. “It was important for us to show the whole range of his career—works from 1965 to others that were finished last week,” says Rüger. (Rüger, meanwhile, will head to the Frick Collection as director when the museum reopens in the spring of........

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