New restaurant showcases Martin Creed's work

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‘I want the whole world to be in it’

Martin Creed, 2011

Turner Prize winning artist Martin Creed has transformed the Gallery restaurant at London’s iconic Sketch, in the first of a new long-term programme of artist-conceived restaurants at the venue. The project seeks to blur the boundaries between art, food, design and functionality. Martin Creed at Sketch launches today, 1 March 2012, 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 as an exhibition, an artwork, a restaurant and an Events space.  Displaying the logical and welcoming systems that recur throughout his work, the floor, walls and furniture will 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 handcrafted, from classic antiques to contemporary design from all around the world.

Sketch’s co-founder and three-Michelin-starred chef, Pierre Gagnaire, will design 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 is intended 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 organization 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 the 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.