Artist David Shrigley Commissioned To Re-image London’s Sketch Restaurant

David Shrigley

The Turner Prize nominated artist David Shrigley has been commissioned to redesign the image of Sketch restaurant in central London. The transformation is set for May 2014. The gallery restaurant has a long-term commitment to artist-conceived restaurant spaces. The project follows the huge success of Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed’s sketch restaurant commission in 2012.

Through a range of new site-specific works, both functional and decorative, David Shrigley will create an environment that is at once an exhibition, an artwork and a restaurant. The artist will totally re-imagine the vast dining room with elements that range from an immersive large-scale animated mural on all four walls, down to tableware featuring his distinctive mordant and witty drawings. David Shrigley said: ‘I’m delighted to be working with sketch on such an exciting commission. Amongst other things I intend to create all the ceramic tableware for the restaurant. It will be the first artwork that I have made that can go in the dishwasher. It will be very clean artwork. Clean artwork is good artwork, in my opinion.’ Currently nominated for Turner Prize 2013 and shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth 2014/15, David Shrigley (b. 1968) is best known for cartoon-like drawings that make satirical comments on everyday situations and human interactions. Shrigley’s international career has seen him work across a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography and animation.

His presentation for the Turner Prize 2013 exhibition – Life Model – invites the public to draw their own interpretation of a naked male sculpture and display them as part of the installation. Shrigley also frequently chooses to operate outside the gallery sphere, for instance in prolific artist publications and collaborative music projects. Exploring the boundaries between art and food, Shrigley will also work closely with sketch co-founder and three Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire to design the new Gallery menu. Dishes will be directly influenced by his artwork to form part of the ‘gastro-brasserie’ cuisine. The series of artist restaurants at sketch aims 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. David Shrigley’s project is jointly curated by RSC Contemporary Ltd and Christopher Huynh.

Sketch was inaugurated in 2002 by restaurateur Mourad Mazouz and masterchef Pierre Gagnaire, as a destination for food, art and music. Over the past decade, due to Mazouz’s commitment to art and design, the venue has hosted over fifty exhibitions of artists’ moving image including work by Carsten Nicolai, John Baldessari, Jonas Mekas, Silvie Fleury, Mary Ellen Bute, Charles & Ray Eames and Michael Nyman. David Shrigley was born in 1968 in Macclesfield, UK. He is now based in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2012 a major retrospective of the artist’s work was held at the Hayward Gallery, London (2012), which toured to Yerba Beuna Centre for the Arts, San Francisco, USA (2013). Other recent solo exhibitions have included ‘Big Shoes’, BQ, Berlin, Germany (2013); ‘How Are You Feeling?’, Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK (2012-2013); ‘Arms Fayre’, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England (2012); ‘Drawings’, Mumbai Art Rooms, Mumbai, India (2012); ‘Animate’, Turku Art Museum, Finland (2011); ‘David Shrigley’, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway (2009); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2008).

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