The Turner Prize winning artist Martin Creed has transformed the Gallery restaurant at London’s Sketch
In the first of a new long-term programme of artist-conceived restaurants, at the venue, Martin Creed has taken to task a complete redesign of the main restaurant space. The installation seeks to blur the boundaries between art, food, design and functionality. Creed at Sketch will launched on1 March coinciding with Sketch’s 10th anniversary and a pivotal year for London as a cultural centre.
Through a series of new works both functional and decorative, Creed has created an environment that is at once an exhibition, an artwork, a restaurant and an Events space. Exemplary of the logical and welcoming systems that recur throughout his work, the floor, walls and furniture take the form of new artworks inspired by the boundaries of art and functionality.
Work No. 1347 consists of 96 different types of marble, in a formation of zigzagging lines across the floor, along with a series of paintings and large-scale wall paintings. Work No. 1343 is a new work specially made for the restaurant in which every single piece of cutlery, glass, chair and table is different. This work brings together a mix of the mass produced and hand-crafted, from classic antiques to contemporary design from all around the world.
Sketch’s co-founder and three Michelin starred chef Pierre Gagnaire have designed the menu in unison with the artist’s concerns, allowing freedom to experiment and create dishes directly influenced by Creed’s artwork. The series of artist restaurants at sketch will look to establish a forum for artists’ imaginings and innovations in art, design and social space, creating playful propositions for interaction with art in the public realm.
Sketch was inaugurated in 2002 by restaurateur Mourad Mazouz and masterchef Pierre Gagnaire. Mazouz’s commitment to art and design led to the establishment of Sketch Gallery Foundation as a non-profit arts organisation and Sketch has hosted
over fifty major exhibitions of moving image over the last decade including work by Carsten Nicolai, John Baldessari, Jonas Mekas and Sylvie Fleury, as well as numerous off-site projects such as the CINACT series at The Gate Cinema in collaboration with Serpentine Gallery. Since 2006 the exhibitions programme has been curated by Victoria Brooks.
With this new initiative sketch continues to contribute to 9 Conduit Street’s rich heritage as a destination for experimentation in design, art and architecture having previously housed the headquarters of RIBA and the Atelier of Christian Dior.
Martin Creed is one of the foremost contemporary artists in the UK today. Based in London, the former Turner Prize winner is internationally acclaimed for working across a multitude of disciplines including installation, sculpture, music, dance and film. Popularly known in the UK for his Turner prize winning presentation of Work No. 227, The lights going on and off, he has had numerous solo museum and institutional exhibitions as well as work commissioned for the public realm including Work No. 1197, All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes, which will mark the start of the 2012 Olympic season.
Creed has had numerous UK and international solo exhibitions including recent shows at Venice Biennale, Venice; Tate Britain, London; Hauser & Wirth, London/Zurich; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Royal Festival Hall, London; Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York; Heidelberg Kunstverein, Heidelberg; The New Art Gallery, Walsall; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; IKON Gallery, Birmingham and MARCO Museo d’Arte Contemporaneo, Vigo.