Ferran Adria

[paulraphael]

I can see your point but it is a softer worldview than mine. It is less demanding.

I don't know about that. It's really just the difference between the classical idea of an artist, which is based on a normative definition, and the modern idea, which is based on a descriptive one. The modern idiom is broadly inclusive as far as what is art/who is an artist, but it's no less rigorous regarding what is great art/who is a great artist.

But only a small percentage of that art will be graded as momentous and important or even "valid" by those who judge from within the milieu.

Absolutely true regarding momentous and important. But I haven't seen a serious curator or critic try to wield the idea of validity in a very long time. The 20th century taught people they'd likely put their foot in their mouth when making proclamations about that!

According to this you wrote above, Adria in your opinion is an artist because he endeavors to make art? Nothing more nothing less?

Yes.

But what makes him a great artist, or an influential artist, or an important artist, if he is indeed any of the above, is a whole separate conversation. That's where the critical aparatus and the historical perspective come to play.

... is merely using rhetoric to give force to the suggestion that everyone should follow what your own critical decisions have been in this case.  ) 

Not my critical decisions; just some observations on how the curatorial and critical worlds have evolved in the last hundred years.

P.S. All in all I am not sure who is the better artist, when stretching the term to include many things: Adria? Or the organizers of the show for the museum who ended up being provided with food prepared by him without even having to obtain reservations for el Bulli. How often does Adria do "home visits" such as this I wonder? An excellent piece of performance art done by the organizers. So quietly and without fanfare for their skills, too. 

Ha! now you've leapfrogged my argument with a postmodern one--the idea that the artist just provides the raw material and the critic/curator creates the Big Idea. If your conspiracy theory is true, these curators are the most clever I've heard of ... I'm much more impressed by an ingeniously procured free meal than by thousands of words of artspeak ...

[Carrot Top]

I wrote a very long response to your post, Paul, then tried to edit it and then realized that there was some sort of circular logic going on in your posts that was inescapable. Momentarily, anyway.

It will be interesting to hear more commentary on all this.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[victornet]

"I don't know about that. It's really just the difference between the classical idea of an artist, which is based on a normative definition, and the modern idea, which is based on a descriptive one. The modern idiom is broadly inclusive as far as what is art/who is an artist, but it's no less rigorous regarding what is great art/who is a great artist."

- I think Paul really hit it on the head here. The old idea of artist depended on a hierarchy of media. So that a talentless weekend watercolorist was easily recognized as an 'artist' while great artists using photography a century ago were considered craftsmen. Many photographers still prefer being called photographers, rather than artists, because they (at least consciously) identify more with their medium than the more abstract concept of art. In this they may be mindful of predecessors such as Atget who managed to do just great without proclaiming themselves artists. This brings us back to the artist's intention, which clearly is a questionable determinant of the status of art.

The issue here is not really whether cooking can be art. For me there is no room for debate - Adria's creation is very fine art. But so is Opera, and it is rarely shown at Documenta or the Biennials, etc. There are a lot of arts. I think the debate here is whether the "artworld" will try to claim chefs the way it has claimed photographers, video artists, etc.

Edited July 29, 2007 by victornet (log)

[docsconz]

I wrote a very long response to your post, Paul, then tried to edit it and then realized that there was some sort of circular logic going on in your posts that was inescapable. Momentarily, anyway. 

It will be interesting to hear more commentary on all this.   

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I don't see anything circular about his argument at all. There are simply two definitions at play. One is what constitutes an "artist" and the other is what constitutes a "great artist." For the former, all anyone needs to be called an artist is to call oneself one or to be called one. It is not a particularly special designation in and of itself and its only significance is one of intent. The latter definition is much more significant because it is what confers meaning on being an artist. I obviously feel that Adria fits the latter definition as well as the former.

[docsconz]

"I don't know about that. It's really just the difference between the classical idea of an artist, which is based on a normative definition, and the modern idea, which is based on a descriptive one. The modern idiom is broadly inclusive as far as what is art/who is an artist, but it's no less rigorous regarding what is great art/who is a great artist."

- I think Paul really hit it on the head here. The old idea of artist depended on a hierarchy of media. So that a talentless weekend watercolorist was easily recognized as an 'artist' while great artists using photography a century ago were considered craftsmen. Many photographers still prefer being called photographers, rather than artists, because they (at least consciously) identify more with their medium than the more abstract concept of art. In this they may be mindful of predecessors such as Atget who managed to do just great without proclaiming themselves artists. This brings us back to the artist's intention, which clearly is a questionable determinant of the status of art.

The issue here is not really whether cooking can be art. For me there is no room for debate - Adria's creation is very fine art. But so is Opera, and it is rarely shown at Documenta or the Biennials, etc. There are a lot of arts. I think the debate here is whether the "artworld" will try to claim chefs the way it has claimed photographers, video artists, etc.

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I agree.

[Carrot Top]

Quote docsconz:

I don't see anything circular about his argument at all.

It was circular to me in that moment, doc, because I was struggling to defend a concept that had seemed right to me at the time I was thinking it.

I had to stop for a moment and use my mind in a clear way instead of an emotional way in order to find my way to thinking of an artist is an artist because they say they are.

I can find two excuses for my mind being resistant to this idea - one is that the art world in NYC that I lived in which was composed of working/showing artists, vital galleries, and the critics and curators who interlaced it in the 70's and 80's was teetering on the edge of saying clearly (as a concept) that an artist is an artist because they say they are . . . but the inevitable judgement of quality of any art piece was done in the exact same thought. There was "Is this art? Is he/she an artist? Does this suck or not?" all in one breath, without separation as has now seemed to develop based on the accounts being given here. I never had the experience of thinking that a weekend artist who painted or who did whatever they did on a clearly amateur level could be considered a "real" artist, because my concepts of art were formed from within the art world at that place and time, and the snottiness level of the professionals was marvellously high. Any work that did not hit a certain level was dismissed with a snort of supreme derision by those that inhabited this world, along with all the bourgeois qualities that it seemed to represent. So wrapping my mind around the idea that anyone who says they are an artist is an artist was difficult for me based on this history.

After thinking about it and letting the idea seep around a bit in my mind, I can see that it would be a likely next step in what was happening in the art world, though. It makes sense.

My second excuse is that I have not paid much attention to all this in recent years, so this is a wonderful learning experience.

The old idea of artist depended on a hierarchy of media. So that a talentless weekend watercolorist was easily recognized as an 'artist' while great artists using photography a century ago were considered craftsmen. Many photographers still prefer being called photographers, rather than artists, because they (at least consciously) identify more with their medium than the more abstract concept of art. In this they may be mindful of predecessors such as Atget who managed to do just great without proclaiming themselves artists. This brings us back to the artist's intention, which clearly is a questionable determinant of the status of art.

The issue here is not really whether cooking can be art. For me there is no room for debate - Adria's creation is very fine art. But so is Opera, and it is rarely shown at Documenta or the Biennials, etc. There are a lot of arts. I think the debate here is whether the "artworld" will try to claim chefs the way it has claimed photographers, video artists, etc.

You were in agreement, doc, and I am too. The two points that most interest me are in bold above. The first is worthy of thought, even in the Adria scenario. The second one . . . I have to say that I distinctly remember photographers and video artists who actively pursued the artworld as much or more than the artworld pursued them, so I think it was a two-way dance in many cases. There was a lot of pounding on the door to be let in. Which ties into the Adria thing too for one has to wonder just for the wondering of it whether he did or did not, subconsciously or consciously, take Marinetti into his bag of tools when he set out to do his art, which he does not call art but cooking.

I have a thing for seeing how things work in a detailed fashion, aside from trying to decide what they are. Call it a choreography fetish maybe.

.............................................

Paul: You've done a fantastic job of making clear what your points are about "being an artist" . The only side note that I do have to make is that I must assume that the concept of validity and the word itself as applied to specific genres of art or to art history within the art world must have been in the pages of Artforum magazine as late as the 70's and 80's (the 70's and 80's of the 1900's that is ) and it must have been used in discussion by those who read Artforum as something meaningful to discuss at that time . . . as otherwise I never would have been exposed to the concept of validity within this context, as outside of being there then and reading a lot during that period I have absolutely no formal or informal exposure to the art history or theory in extended or historic readings. So it may have been that people stopped using the word as you say . . . but within "the last century" that is really "the end of the last century". Which (to me) does not really seem to be all that long ago.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[paulraphael]

So it may have been that people stopped using the word as you say . . . but within "the last century" that is really "the end of the last century". Which (to me) does not really seem to be all that long ago.   

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Duchamp first presented his "readymades" in 1915 ... and while this might have been the most blatant challenge to classical heirarchies, it certainly wasn't the first.

There are some interesting impilcations in the whole endeavor of found art. It suggests that it's not just the intent of the creator of a work that makes it art, but sometimes the intent of the person who shows it or the person who views it. Any of these paries can put something in a context that causes it to be seen as art.

Which isn't a free ride for anyone. If I hang my dirty socks on the wall at MoMA, they WILL be seen as art. But this also means they will be judged by the standards of contempoary art criticism--a sharp double edged sword. They may be very nice socks, but the chances of the curators and critics and audiences thinking much of them in their new, heightened context are not so promising. How sad it would be to see a merciless review of my lucky socks in the Times.

And a funny story about Duchamp: apparently an assistant curator at MoMA managed to break Duchamp's snow shovel while hanging a show. I don't know how someone schooled in handling priceless antiquities can break a snow shovel, but that's another story. At any rate, they called Duchamp in a panic, begging for forgiveness and for a replacement. Duchamp just said, "ok, get another one." The curators didn't get it. "Just go down to the hardware store on 59th street and get another one." The curators said they couldn't do that, it was Duchamp's piece. To which he said, "what are you talking about, that's where I got it. The curators expained that this would be stepping outside their bounds ... that they'd be happy to pay for it, but that Duchamp would have to get the shovel. So, exasperated with the clueless curators, Duchamp went to the hardware store and bought another f'ing shovel!

Edited July 30, 2007 by paulraphael (log)

[Carrot Top]

The curators didn't get it. "Just go down to the hardware store on 59th street and get another one." The curators said they couldn't do that, it was Duchamp's piece. To which he said, "what are you talking about, that's where I got it. The curators expained that this would be stepping outside their bounds ... that they'd be happy to pay for it, but that Duchamp would have to get the shovel. So, exasperated with the clueless curators, Duchamp went to the hardware store and bought another f'ing shovel!

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How beautifully ironic that it was a shovel.

Now if he had been a chef it might have been the more delicate spoon.

[paulraphael]

the plot thickens ...

I just did a search to find sources for the snow shovel story, and instead found this:

a conspiracy theory suggesting that Duchamp actually made all that stuff from scratch, and only said that he found it!

Some think that if this is true, the implications would be staggering.

For instance, guys like Adria could no longer get away with just "finding" vegetables at the market or the garden; they would have to start constructing them from scratch in laboratories, perhaps using stem cells, or paper maché.

[victornet]

About this intention stuff (as it relates to the art world, attitude, and the more frivolous side of the argument). Back in the 80's (last century) I was touring the very fine corporate art collection of a brokerage house with the donor class of an arts organization at which my wife was working. Decorating a glass walled room were a group of framed charts and graphs. Some discussion evolved about what these things were. One trustee (owner of a very fine collection - I'd love to have her Anselm Kiefer in my living room ) opined that they were works of conceptual art. I suggested that they were charts and graphs (not mentioning my doctoral studies in art history). After the curator affirmed that they were stock charts, and that was the war room where they try to f*** Merill Lynch, the collector noted that she had thought they were art because she had art running through her brain, implying I was cleraly an insensitive lout by comparison. Today she'd probably say they were edible paper from Homero Cantu. For me the message was that you can't win.

It's interesting, and a bit unfortunate, that Adria's understated contributiion to Documenta has largely been ignored by art critics. But he has little to lose by this, other than a lot of unneeded half-attention.

[Carrot Top]

quote paulraphael

For instance, guys like Adria could no longer get away with just "finding" vegetables at the market or the garden; they would have to start constructing them from scratch in laboratories, perhaps using stem cells, or paper maché.

I like the idea of a huge paper mache (but not really paper mache, just something edible that looked like it) carrot with some greens attached laying in the center of a knife-worn large wooden plate (a plate that looked very Old Dutch).

The large plate with the huge carrot would be placed in front of the diner and when they took up their oversized silver cutlery to eat it (as everyone knows you have to show good manners in restaurants - it would be terribly wrong to pick up the thing with your hands and chomp on it like Bugs Bunny) the taste would be of something else other than carrot. Sauerbraten maybe.

Baby paper mache purple-black eggplants would be nice too. Four or five of them on a those large wooden plates, each with a different flavor. Licorice. Pickled herring. Lemon mousse. Marshmallow fluff. And of course one that just tasted like plain eggplant. Or one that actually was just plain eggplant.

This concept would have to be thought of (if it were thought of at all by anyone) as being more in the mode of surrealism than conceptual art though, for it would be too absolutely dreary to try to write a serious manifesto for it.

Edited July 31, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

It's interesting, and a bit unfortunate, that Adria's understated contributiion to Documenta has largely been ignored by art critics. But he has little to lose by this, other than a lot of unneeded half-attention.

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One gain (apart from whatever lands directly on Adria) is that one more small step has occured in the world of cooking to move the work of cooking towards being considered a profession rather than a trade by society-at-large.

Edited July 31, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[paulraphael]

It's interesting, and a bit unfortunate, that Adria's understated contributiion to Documenta has largely been ignored by art critics. But he has little to lose by this, other than a lot of unneeded half-attention.

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One gain (apart from whatever lands directly on Adria) is that one more small step has occured in the world of cooking to move the work of cooking towards being considered a profession rather than a trade by society-at-large.

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Yeah, and I think it's helpful just to get the stuff seen by the critics, even if they don't respond at first. My guess is (and it's only a guess) that the critics just didn't know how to respond. They were confronted by something that truly comes out of an unfamiliar tradition. In that profession there's a certain performance anxiety about sounding like you know what you're talking about ... and history has taught them that dismissing something unfamiliar can backfire badly. So innocently neglecting to say anything might be the easiest way out.

It would be nice if the experience sent a few of the critics scrambling to learn more about food.

Edited July 31, 2007 by paulraphael (log)

[Carrot Top]

It would take a critic willing to risk pushing the envelope to do that. With an editor/publisher behind them who had enough certainty that their particular audience would want to read it.

I don't know enough about critics currently writing to even hazard a guess but am having fun considering which countries it would possibly occur in first, and why.

Interesting to consider how the piece would be shaped when written, too. Aside from drawing parallels between this and that tradition and methodology and pulling rabbits out of history's hats to display with a winning yet silent grin, would the critic talk turkey about food? Would they say things like

Adria's rendering was an epiphanic volcano of sheer pleasure that rocked my previously dull and despairing tastebuds to skitter into a quick and humble bow followed by a lengthy and ardent kowtow as they prayed beseechingly for more of this delightful dish.

Would art critics start the sideways slide into being foodwriters?

...................................................................................

After the inspiration of your paper mache idea sprouted into its subsequent nonsense, naturally Dali's cookbook came to mind, and the dinners from it.

One wonders where that stands in terms of "what it is". Both the cookbook and the cooking/food expressed from it. Is it a cookbook written by an artist? Is it art shaped as a cookbook and food? Or has it landed in the Twilight Zone of definition?

[paulraphael]

One wonders where that stands in terms of "what it is". Both the cookbook and the cooking/food expressed from it. Is it a cookbook written by an artist? Is it art shaped as a cookbook and food? Or has it landed in the Twilight Zone of definition?

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I like the potential for food writers and art critics starting a bitter rivalry, each group calling the other a bunch of philistines.

We'd hear about cases of families from the midwest visiting an avante garde restaurant before seeing the Lion King, based on a glowing review they'd mistakenly read in Art Forum.

The rest of the scene practically writes itself.

[docsconz]

Much of art criticism is dependent on a knowledge and familiarity with art history. The context of a piece of art within history is important to provide a sense of value and perspective. What made Duchamp's R.Mutt important was not its sheer physical beauty, but the context in which it was presented. What made throwing paint onto canvas art rather than something anyone can do was the time, place and context within which it was done by Jackson Pollock. Ironically one of the very things that makes Adria's work art is its context within the history of gastronomy, a context and history all but unknown to most art critics. I suspect that is at least one reason for the lack of voices from within the art world on the subject of Adria as art.

[victornet]

One overlooked fact is that art critics are at the bottom of the economic food chain of the art world. They get invited to lots of nice dinners given by gallerists, but their pilgrimage priorities might not be to visit Adria or Blumenthal.

On the other hand, lots of folks in the art world are crazy about the state of the art in food, and do get around. During the years I was trying to score my El Bulli reservation a curator friend offered to query his Spanish curator friends to see if they could grease the way (with typical art world bravado he assumed it would be a done deal). I declined, but might have explored that avenue eventually.

I certainly thought it was really cool when Adria was announced as the "A" artist as an advance teaser by the documenta curators (they named an"A" artist and a "Z" artist well in advance of the entire roster). But I'd rather have Adria focus on the food world, with so many demands on his attention as it is.

An aside: while many artists do a 'cheap line' such as large edition prints, this is much more peripheral to their achievement generally than it is in food. I think it's great that Adria started FastGood, though when I sought one out in Madrid I must admit that I lunched at Sergei Arola's slightly downscale (but less utopian) branch across the street.

[Carrot Top]

I like the potential for food writers and art critics starting a bitter rivalry, each group calling the other a bunch of philistines.

We'd hear about cases of families from the midwest visiting an avante garde restaurant before seeing the Lion King, based on a glowing review they'd mistakenly read in Art Forum.

The rest of the scene practically writes itself.

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Love it. I see it as a movie. Black and white except for the scenes that occured within restaurants or galleries/museums. These scenes would be drenched in color, deep scarlets and blues jumping off the screen with shocking aggression.

Naturally it would have to be a light comedy with horror movie undertones. Naturally it would preview at Cannes and win some-prize-or-other.

Ironically one of the very things that makes Adria's work art is its context within the history of gastronomy, a context and history all but unknown to most art critics. I suspect that is at least one reason for the lack of voices from within the art world on the subject of Adria as art.

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It's a shame, really, because the history of gastonomy is a fairly easy one to consume and comprehend as it has not been all mucked up by the writings of academics.

Yet.

..................................................

I woke up this morning with the sureness of thought that it should not be cooking that aspires to be art but rather that it should be that art aspires to be cooking.

And if I can remember why I thought this I'll try to write a post later, for all this lovely focus on talking about art and Adria et al has been a fantastic way to avoid writing this thing I have due yesterday.

[victornet]

Of course if such a conflict came to pass it would be the art critics, not the chefs or foodies, wielding knives.