One of the things that seemed to stir the most attention recently was Marina Abramovic (one of our heroes) and Creative Times partnering with the seasonally organized, and design heavy restaurant Park Avenue Winter. Abramovic worked alongside chef Kevin Lasko to create a dessert, Volcano Flambe, which is eaten accompanied by an MP3 player playing Abramovic;s voice guiding you through the sensual experience of eating dessert, other artist are following- including another favorite of ours- Janine Antoni. Artinfo has a good (and fuller) description.
Then there is the pop-restaurant What Happens When that Frank Bruni wrote about recently, which opens this week! We think this is a really fascinating model for creating a dining experience. We cant wait to go and see how it works. Also covered by the NYTimes recently was the trend in Berlin restaurant/gallery spaces. The descriptions of some of these places are amazing, especially Zagerus Projekt, pictured above. Maybe it is time to plan a trip to Berlin, it sounds like an amazing city to be an artist.
There also seems to be a small resurgence of interest in the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, one our biggest inspirations and hero. There is show at David Zwirner right now of his work that grew out the experimental art space 112 Greene St, which is reviewed in The New Yorker. Matta-Clark explored food and eating in various ways including at his artist run SoHo restaurant Food, which was located at 127 Prince, hence the name of the new online art journal where we were recently interviewed. FEAST Brooklyn comes to mind as another great example of projects inspired by Matta-Clark and Food.
We hope that more places/projects like these develop in NYC. Where things like these have been happening in the West Coast and in Europe for sometime, it seems New York is on the cusp of embracing the gastro-art world, again. We are as always especially excited to see what happen with Flatbread Affair as these ideas gain more currency here.
