Did she actually eat that!? That’s what I asked myself as I compulsively took pictures of Sophie Calle’s Chromatic Diet photos on view in Nicolas Bourriaud’s exhibition Cookbook in Paris. For a week, the artist restricted her diet to dinners based on monochromatic colors, spreads that were fully edible but looked more like paintings than meals. This is precisely what curator Bourriaud wants to point out––in contemporary culture, the division between fine food and fine art is becoming more and more porous.
Nicolas Bourriaud is a critic, director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and co-founder of Palais de Tokyo, an experimental art space in Paris that continues the lineage of blurring the lines between art and everyday life. But Bourriaud is arguably most famous for creating esoteric, if irresistible, buzzwords. In the 90s, he coined the term "relational aesthetics" to describe a new generation of artists putting down their paintbrushes to create social experiences––think Rirkrit Tiravanija serving Pad Thai at New York's 303 Gallery in 1992. Inversely, the chefs in Cookbook blur the lines between the conventional kitchen and the gallery space. Displayed alongside visual art, it's often tricky to discern what's edible and what's meant strictly for visual consumption.
Since the 90s, relational aesthetics has become the kind of word that young would-be intellectuals like myself can’t help but find sexy. (Bourriaud's books are also unusually thin, making them a favorite among students looking for something rigorous yet approachable.) As a result, the term is often misused: even if you’ve heard it at an artsy cocktail party, there’s a good chance you did not strike a chord with the author’s original intent in his now iconic Relational Aesthetics (thickness: 0.8 cm).
And the best part is, Nicolas Bourriaud doesn’t care. The curator understands his words and exhibitions are like puzzles, to be arranged and rearranged in a variety of figurations—sometimes matching the cover of the package, sometimes with jagged edges. During my conversation with the grammatical guru, I got the chance to discuss the inspiration and challenges behind Cookbook, his tastes in fine food, art, and fashion, his love for inventing words, as well as his newest linguistic brainchild, the “exform.”
Cookbook is on view at The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris until January 9.
Jordan Carter: Can you talk about the curatorial inspiration behind Cookbook? Why did you decide to collaborate with food critic Andrea Petrini?
Nicolas Bourriaud: Food has become central in our culture in the last ten or fifteen years. But, there has yet to be an exhibition that takes that into account. Actually, it’s a lot like cinema in the 50s with its auteur politics that made us understand that filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock were actually artists. It was interesting for me to work with someone like Andrea Petrini who knows the culinary landscape.
What were the challenges that arose when working with chefs—people whose primary practice is culinary art—to create a visual exhibition?
Nicolas Bourriaud is a critic, director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and co-founder of Palais de Tokyo, an experimental art space in Paris that continues the lineage of blurring the lines between art and everyday life. But Bourriaud is arguably most famous for creating esoteric, if irresistible, buzzwords. In the 90s, he coined the term "relational aesthetics" to describe a new generation of artists putting down their paintbrushes to create social experiences––think Rirkrit Tiravanija serving Pad Thai at New York's 303 Gallery in 1992. Inversely, the chefs in Cookbook blur the lines between the conventional kitchen and the gallery space. Displayed alongside visual art, it's often tricky to discern what's edible and what's meant strictly for visual consumption.
Since the 90s, relational aesthetics has become the kind of word that young would-be intellectuals like myself can’t help but find sexy. (Bourriaud's books are also unusually thin, making them a favorite among students looking for something rigorous yet approachable.) As a result, the term is often misused: even if you’ve heard it at an artsy cocktail party, there’s a good chance you did not strike a chord with the author’s original intent in his now iconic Relational Aesthetics (thickness: 0.8 cm).
And the best part is, Nicolas Bourriaud doesn’t care. The curator understands his words and exhibitions are like puzzles, to be arranged and rearranged in a variety of figurations—sometimes matching the cover of the package, sometimes with jagged edges. During my conversation with the grammatical guru, I got the chance to discuss the inspiration and challenges behind Cookbook, his tastes in fine food, art, and fashion, his love for inventing words, as well as his newest linguistic brainchild, the “exform.”
Cookbook is on view at The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris until January 9.
Jordan Carter: Can you talk about the curatorial inspiration behind Cookbook? Why did you decide to collaborate with food critic Andrea Petrini?
Nicolas Bourriaud: Food has become central in our culture in the last ten or fifteen years. But, there has yet to be an exhibition that takes that into account. Actually, it’s a lot like cinema in the 50s with its auteur politics that made us understand that filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock were actually artists. It was interesting for me to work with someone like Andrea Petrini who knows the culinary landscape.
What were the challenges that arose when working with chefs—people whose primary practice is culinary art—to create a visual exhibition?