Although gastronomy has always been present in the history of human society, in recent times it has become the center of media attention and since the beginning of the 21st century it has become the object of aesthetic and ethical reflection, as well as artistic practice. As the object of works of a more or less religious or decorative nature and after having been a recurrent subject in painting and sculpture for centuries in a continuum that goes back to the asarotos oikos of the classical period to the still life, through Arcimboldo, The Last Supper, the picnics and parties of the impressionists and the artistic movements of the early 20th century, gastronomy, food products, and gastronomic processes are today a recurrent topic of conversation, an object of public and political interest, justification for the purchase of equipment that is futuristic in appearance, and a reason for pilgrimages to gastronomic spaces haloed by the chef, the stars, the forks, and other symbols of success that gravitate around them.

Artists, chefs and cooking labs

Attentive to this phenomenon of the new centrality of gastronomy in contemporary society, artists have incorporated it into their work, establishing alliances with chefs and culinary laboratories and, recognizing the authorial component of gastronomic work, appropriating processes, themes and kitchen utensils. Outside the universe of arts and culture, or the properly informed circuits, the common citizen also follows the contests on television and other media that promise to transform their peers into titans of the kitchen. Never before has so much media space been devoted to the craft of cooking, allowing culinary talent to compete for audiences with athletes, celebrities, and politicians.

At the core of creativity

Moving on to the topic at hand, we could consider the emergence of the kitchen, its agents, and its processes at the core of artistic creativity as an example of the vitality of contemporary art and its ability to reflect on the society of which it is a part. part. . In a time when food is easily accessible (never before has food been so cheap, abundant, and available), people (in the Western world) are redirecting their appetites to other levels of pleasure. The gastronomic experience has ceased to satisfy a basic need (as is the case with clothing) to become a symbol of the level of economic and social well-being, intellectual status, or self-affirmation, all the more relevant because of its ephemerality, uniqueness, and individual character. This is despite the eminently social nature of gastronomy.
Terms, concepts and themes such as fair trade, food traceability, zero kilometer, certificate of origin or terroir, which have to do with the appropriate and responsible management of resources, are inseparable from the cuisine and creative activity of culinary agents, who influence public opinion and their activities through the selection of suppliers and products, and create trends by including or excluding certain processes, presentations or products from their restaurants’ offerings. In this same line of thought, and without excluding the relevance of older examples, it would be convenient to limit the subject of this text to cases sufficiently close both in time and in terms of recognizable impact. In literature, besides Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Cucina futurista manifesto or Les dîners de Gala organized by Gala and Dalí (with no programmatic intention), it is worth mentioning Orphic Fodder by Mimi Oka and Doug Fitch, La Conversation by Meneau , Gissinger, and Stassart, and Food to Think by Ferran Adrià (with the participation of artist Richard Hamilton and curator Vicente Todoli), which reflects the seminal experience of the Catalan chef as Spain’s representative at Documenta 12 in Kassel. Moving on to the topic at hand, we could consider the emergence of cuisine, its agents, and its processes at the core of artistic creativity as an example of the vitality of contemporary art and its ability to reflect on the society of which it is a part. part. . In a time when food is easily accessible (never before has food been so cheap, abundant, and available), people (in the Western world) are redirecting their appetites to other levels of pleasure. The gastronomic experience has ceased to satisfy a basic need (as is the case with clothing) to become a symbol of the level of economic and social well-being, intellectual status, or self-affirmation, all the more relevant because of its ephemerality, uniqueness, and individual character. This is despite the eminently social character of gastronomy. Terms, concepts and themes such as fair trade, food traceability, zero kilometer, certificate of origin or terroir, which have to do with the proper and responsible management of resources, are inseparable from the cuisine and creative activity of culinary agents, who influence public opinion and their activities through the selection of suppliers and products, and create trends by including or excluding certain processes, presentations or products from their restaurants’ offerings. In this same line of thought, and without excluding the relevance of older examples, it would be convenient to limit the subject of this text to cases sufficiently close both in time and in terms of recognizable impact. In literature, in addition to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s futuristic Cucina manifesto or Les dîners de Gala organized by Gala and Dalí (with no programmatic intention), it is worth mentioning Orphic Fodder by Mimi Oka and Doug Fitch, La Conversation by Meneau , Gissinger and Stassart and Food to Think by Ferran Adrià (with the participation of artist Richard Hamilton and curator Vicente Todoli), which reflects the seminal experience of the Catalan chef as Spain’s representative at Documenta 12 in Kassel.
On artistic activity and its connection with the field of gastronomy and/or restoration (not forgetting Leonardo and his Florentine tavern Delle Tre Lumache, his inventions and activities as master of parties and banquets for the Sforza family), we highlight Daniel Spoerri, Gordon Matta-Clark and Antoni Miralda, the work of Paco Cao and the gigantic performances of Tiravanija. The three restoration projects by Spoerri, Matta-Clark and Miralda between the late 1960s and mid-1980s, the first in Düsseldorf and the others in Soho and Tribeca in New York, revisited the tradition of spaces where bourgeois culture developed, where artistic themes were discussed around food and drink. In Dusseldorf, Spoerri also worked as cook and programmer for the adjacent gallery; in New York, Miralda pioneered the promotion of Spanish cuisine for clients such as Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, while Matta-Clark hired a guest artist to create the menu every day. More recently we have the cases of the restaurants opened in France at Palais de Tokyo and Mac/Val by art historian and critic Gilles Stassart (interviewed this year by Expresso at Bulthaup Amoreiras), The Pharmacy in London, a venture by Matthew Freud and Damien Hirst, as well as Larry Gagosian’s collaboration with Japanese chef Masayoshi Takayama at Kappo Masa in New York or the successful Matador Club in Madrid, which attracts art collectors and gastrophiles every day. In Portugal, we have some activities such as the Triennale o Alentejo, 2013/2014, Mar e Montanha, from 2015/2016, and Fazer render o Peixe. from 2016/2017. These projects, based on a curatorial and idiosyncratic production team that includes members from the field of political communication and cinema, as well as journalism and gastronomic criticism, have been organized as artistic residency programs in Portugal outside the major urban centers, inviting cultural agents to settle in regions with very marked characteristics, in a reflection process closely linked to endogenous production in which agriculture and gastronomy have been of growing relevance. The Triennial, which highlighted the performance of the 500 Grandmothers Lunch by Tatsumi Orimoto (member of the Fluxus group and former collaborator of Nam June Paik) at the Convent of São Bento de Cástris in Évora, a community feast around Alentejo cuisine and gender issues, with the collaboration of chef Pedro Mendes (also responsible for the Matador Club dinner at bulthaup Chiado in May 2016, under the ARCO VIP program) gave rise to the special edition of a wine of the Pierre Gonnor brand. The Sea and Mountain was organized around pairs of artists and chefs, in which the chef was also the guide in the region where the products were researched and selected. Each artist was assigned a key ingredient: fleur de sel, almond, tuna, octopus, carob… Mónica Bengoa worked with sweet potato, Eugenio Ampudia with barnacles, Miki Leal with fig… Neuner, Ricardo Costa or Leonel Pereira collaborated in the kitchen with artists to create videos, ceramics, surgical glassware, and new recipes. In the final cycle, artistic and gastronomic projects were presented simultaneously: Miki Leal and Beatriz Lobo worked with Galician chef Fernando Agrasar, and Gilles Stassart joined Doug Fitch, after the latter’s collaboration with Antoine Westermann in the creation of Le Coq Rico in New York. All within a gastronomic spirit very much in line with the bulthaup philosophy, thus demonstrating, as Cristina Giménez pointed out, that gastronomy is one of the cultural fields where creativity reaches the highest levels of innovation and excellence.
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