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A fleeting flash of brilliance

Published: 17-Mar-2009

This ‘pop-up’ restaurant juxtaposes Western and Congolese food, music, art and design.

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The Double Club is the idea of German artist Carsten Höller – the man behind those giant, twisting slides at Tate Modern – and made possible by the Fondazione Prada, which represents the Italian fashion label’s excursions into the art world.

In a Victorian warehouse behind Angel Tube station, the restaurant, bar and club was concieved as a temporary restaurant, due to relocate in May, but this is more than just a hang-out de jour for the throwaway generation. Like Höller’s slides, it represents a trend for artwork which can be actively experienced, rather than just looked at in gallery.

The name refers to the two cultures – Western and Congolese – that inspired the project. They don’t so much fuse as coexist in an interior described as a ‘cross-pollination’ of cultures. Like the menu, half is ‘Western’, including Kram/Weisshaar’s Breeding Tables, and the other Congolese, with artwork by Monsengwo Kejwamfi (also know as Moke the Painter), and a vividly embroidered map by artist Alighiero Boetti. It is intended to highlight the positive cultural aspects of the troubled African republic. Funded by the Nigerian Guaranty Trust Bank, the restaurant will donate some of its profits to the City of Joy charity, which helps abused women and children in Congo.

This is not the first temporary venue to conflate art, entertainment and food. Somerset House recently hosted ‘guerrilla’ restaurant Trattoria, designed by graphic design collective Åbäke, and, as Bistrotheque in Bethnal Green nears the end of its life, owners Pablo Flack and David Waddington have opened their latest popup restaurant, Flash, in the Royal Academy of Art.

The Double Club may not be here for long, (the owners are yet to decide whether or not to move on) but it has already won plaudits from restaurant critics, including Metro’s Marina O’ Loughlin, who called it ‘intriguing, stimulating and challenging’. It seems only right that, when multimillion-pound artworks are stencilled on to buildings, a restaurant can become not just a gallery but also an artwork in its own right.

This article was first published in FX Magazine

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