I rather love the work of Martin Creed.
There’s a manly sort of whimsy to much of it, leaving aside his
more-realist-than-needs-be
Sick and
Sex films, which I encountered for the
first time at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham in 2008 while still studying my MA. There
are times when an image really shouldn’t get stuck in your head…
But there’s a deftness too in the way he
ascribes art amongst the ordinary and everyday and a sense of amusement too,
more than perhaps humour. I’m not sure if you would call it conceptual art
punctured by an unpretentious realism or realist art with a witty and knowing surrealist
bent.
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| Martin Creed, Work No. 227, 2001 |
Creed is perhaps most famous for winning
the Turner Prize in 2001 for his Work No.227 – the infamous room with the
lights that turned themselves on and off. But I’m thinking of his 2008 Duveen
Commission for Tate Britain, Work no. 850,
where an athlete ran the length of the Duveen Galleries, full pelt, every 30
seconds, every day from July to November and Work No. 409 (2005), that’s now
installed in the JCB lift at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank. Here, a
recording plays every time the lift is used: a group of singers’ voices rise
and fall as the lift ascends and descends. It’s both theatrically daggy and
unapologetically it is what it is that
you can’t help but like it.
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| Martin Creed, Work No. 850, 2008 |
Aaaanyway. Creed’s latest work can be found
at Sketch on Conduit St. Sketch is many things – achingly cool among them – but
in amongst the kinetic sculptures, members bars and impressive cocktail lists
there’s also a restaurant. I’ve been to Sketch once before – to the bar with
someone who knew someone who worked on the door and I caught a glimpse of the
restaurant then on my way to the famed bathrooms (google it to believe it). At
the time, it had wallpaper in the form of some sort of video art,
with deer ambling their way across the walls. Now, the restaurant has Martin
Creed.
Specifically, it has Work No. 1343 and Work
No. 1347, two works specially commissioned in the first of a programme of
artist-conceived restaurants at Sketch. The commission specifically is to
create an environment that is “at once an exhibition, an artwork and a
restaurant” and that was all I needed to know to make a booking for Lovely Boy
and myself over the Easter long weekend. Tori would be horrified, chef Pierre
Gagnaire would likely be offended, but I didn’t even bother to look at the menu
before making the booking, such is my Commitment To Contemporary Art.
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| Martin Creed redefining a pop-up menu at Sketch |
Lovely Boy thought we should postpone, what
with my hacking, gagging and trailing tissues but I was nothing if not
charmingly stubborn. And I’m so glad we went. And not just because the food was
as good as the art.
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Martin Creed Work No. 1347 & Work No. 1343, 2012
(With the lights on....) Image c/ Sketch |
Creed’s two works take in the floor - Work
No. 1347 - 96 different types of earthy coloured marble from all around the
world, arranged in zigzag formation across the room and then Work No. 1343 –
basically everything else. Creed has taken out the tables, chairs, cutlery,
glassware, crockery, light fittings, lamps, bar stools and video art and
replaced everything with something unique. It’s a dazzling partnership of art
and function as handmade meets mass-produced with antiques, contemporary design
and junk store chic coming together across decades and continents to create a
dynamic, colourful, clever but resolutely unpretentious space where no two
objects are the same.
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| A nice press image c/ Sketch |
We were sat at a yellow Formica table, my seat an old wooden swivel chair with inlaid designs and a horse embroidered
cushion and my wine glass a memento from the Willesden West Rotary Club. The
gentleman at the table next to us was sitting in one of those lecture hall seats with the attached desk while across the room another chair was covered entirely in what looked like
leather post-it notes. Each wall had its own large-scale work of art and only
the bar staff matched in their smart black and white striped shirts.
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| Some more press images c/ Sketch |
It was such an engaged, lively, lovely
environment to be in, with the mishmash of lights overhead washing the space in
a warm, intimate light and the way in which the outdoor furniture negated the ostentatious
Chanel jewellery of its sitter across the room. Our waiter told us that every
evening the room is rearranged so no two experiences are the same. It’s like
that childhood birthday game where you move amongst the chairs in time to the
music but instead of one being removed, it’s simply replaced. And happily, no
one goes without cake.
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| Our collection of wine and water glasses |
Refreshingly, given the whole set up, the
service was totally without pretension and the staff were as informed about
Creed’s work as they were about the menu. Broadbean soup with goats cheese for
entree, veal blanquette for main and sorbet and macaroons for dessert, the food
was a perfect mix of interesting and delicious and I can still taste the
bubblegum in Lovely Boy’s dessert, something called a Malabar featuring Bourbon
vanilla-infused milk, strawberry mousse, bubble gum ice cream and marshmallow.
Bloody hell it was good.
As an art experiece, it was joyous –
humorous, democratic, memorable. As a food experience, it was sophisticated and
fun. I’m not sure what else you can ask for, but my admiration for Creed
continues, as does my love for non-traditional art-filled, art-fuelled environs.
It was such a special night, one of those
crazy truly London-only moments, reinforced by the amble home down Regents St
to Piccadilly Circus tube. I have to confess it wasn’t a cheap night but then, only Damien Hirst puts a price on art right?
