Can food be art?

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

of course its art. no question in my mind.

think about this - you have invited a few friends over for dinner saturday night. during the week, you think about what you want to make them, you think of what ingredients should be available, what you can do with them, you think of something you have had that you think that you can interperet and make slightly differntly, you think of what your friends may enjoy, you conceptualize how they will react to the food. then, you create it, with the intent of creating something that will trigger certain emotions.

art.

I still wouldn't see that as art but it definitely falls under the umbrella of what we call "the art of living" which is a misnomer but an effective one at conveying the creative and relational aspect of everyday activities.

 

[Qzar]

A perfectly hard boiled egg is a piece of art.

Aesthetically beautiful, it speaks volumes about humanity, our needs, and our ability to cope and conquer our environment. In a single egg there is enough wonderment and magic (scientific and culinary) to marvel and amuse the senses. It is a difficult thing to make (I'm talking about a PERFECTLY cooked egg), requiring respect for technique and ingredient.

Same would go for a fine glass of wine, a piece of artisan cheese, a stew (delicately made from a recipe that has been worked and perfected).

You can't say that the artist, who spends much of his life time studying the process of converting milk into cheese isn't an artist. If there is anything more aesthetically perfect that a good piece of cheese I want it NOW. Seriously, artisan food is to the taste buds what Bach is to the ears and Michelangelo is to the eyes. They are all senses, and they all require as much delicate passion and dedication. I mean John Doe can't carve a David, but he can't make a perfect batch of wine either. I'm sure the vintner who made that wine, if he had spent the same amount of time he spent dedicating himself to wine to sculpture, could probably do something aesthetically meaningful.

 

[mr.loverman]

Definitely. Good food requires care and skill to prepare. Great food also requires talent and creativity.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by Qzar

A perfectly hard boiled egg is a piece of art.

Aesthetically beautiful, it speaks volumes about humanity, our needs, and our ability to cope and conquer our environment. In a single egg there is enough wonderment and magic (scientific and culinary) to marvel and amuse the senses. It is a difficult thing to make (I'm talking about a PERFECTLY cooked egg), requiring respect for technique and ingredient.

Same would go for a fine glass of wine, a piece of artisan cheese, a stew (delicately made from a recipe that has been worked and perfected).

You can't say that the artist, who spends much of his life time studying the process of converting milk into cheese isn't an artist. If there is anything more aesthetically perfect that a good piece of cheese I want it NOW. Seriously, artisan food is to the taste buds what Bach is to the ears and Michelangelo is to the eyes. They are all senses, and they all require as much delicate passion and dedication. I mean John Doe can't carve a David, but he can't make a perfect batch of wine either. I'm sure the vintner who made that wine, if he had spent the same amount of time he spent dedicating himself to wine to sculpture, could probably do something aesthetically meaningful.

John Doe can't throw a javelin like an olympic champion or create a space station and those can be a beauty to behold, does that make these things art?

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by mr.loverman

Definitely. Good food requires care and skill to prepare. Great food also requires talent and creativity.

So anything that requires care, skill, talent and creativity to create is an art piece? Is educating a class of 20 schoolchildren and making them passionate about mathematics art? Is ********** art?

 

[Piobaire]

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

It falls into representation, when it was made the questions you could have asked wouldn't have been about food but something like:

-Can advertising be art in the right context?
-Is being an artist about the idea or the process?

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

It falls into representation, when it was made the questions you could have asked wouldn't have been about food but something like:

-Can advertising be art in the right context?
-Is being an artist about the idea or the process?

I thing you could ask a host of other questions too, but I just felt like sticking a Warhol in.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

I thing you could ask a host of other questions too, but I just felt like sticking a Warhol in.

Of course, I was just presenting 2 examples. Aside from the advertising elements you've got matters of reproduction, ownership, process versus product, etc.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

So anything that requires care, skill, talent and creativity to create is an art piece? Is educating a class of 20 schoolchildren and making them passionate about mathematics art? Is ********** art?

essentially, as I see it, art involves the creativity part. you invision something and you create it, with the purpose of achieving a certain emotional response in your audience. that is the binary of art - if it is or isn't. the other things make it better or worse art.


definition

Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

Of course, I was just presenting 2 examples. Aside from the advertising elements you've got matters of reproduction, ownership, process versus product, etc.

How about, why the artist picked that particular example? Does it represent more that just food? The disproportionate weight the Scots influenced the US and Canada? Soup as mother's milk? Mother's love now prepackaged? The clearly defined physical boundaries of the can, and it's role to encompass, imprison, and preserve from corruption?

I could deconstruct that for hours.

 

[Qzar]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

John Doe can't throw a javelin like an olympic champion or create a space station and those can be a beauty to behold, does that make these things art?

So an Olympian throwing a javelin isn't art... but a sculpture of said Olympian would be art (if it portrays his strength and energy). Taking a picture of the Olympian could also be art... but why isn't the Olympian art? Why isn't his technique and style art? Why isn't it beautiful that he has mastered his body to perform those tasks. Is a sea shell art? Is a picture of a sea shell art?

The man who build the space station isn't an artist... but isn't the nature of the space station something to marvel at? Personally I get as much of an emotional response from a Rembrandt as I do when I see pictures of a space station. It represents our ambition and at the same time our insignificance in the boundaries that surround us, yes that wasn't the intended purpose.... but we consider ancient temples beautiful... but where they built for that purpose? are they art?

If art is supposed to have purpose and meaning then are minimalist paintings then not art since they reject self expression?

Why can a giant blog of splattered green be art... but not a loaf of bread?

 

[otc]

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

Again, if I just view it as something that brings me practical utility, I don't see it as art.

Can a Wegner chair or a Saarinen building then be called art? I can sit in my wegner chair and I must say it gets far more use as a seat than as a piece of art, but I still get much more aesthetic pleasure from it than my ikea folding chairs.

Originally Posted by holymadness

I think food is comestible art, which is a slightly bizarre category, since most art creates a kind of permanence.

Where do performance pieces or temporary installations fall? I remember seeing pictures of a certain bacon dish at Alinea with custom sculpted bacon hangers that when mixed with the bacon sure look a lot like an awesome edible sculpture...reproduced and destroyed nightly

 

[Qzar]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

definition
Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions

If we are going by that definition... then all cooking is art... I mean unless you are deliberately making things taste like ****.

 

[Go Surface]

Being an artist, I probably come off as a little biased. I do not consider haute cuisine a form of art, but I do believe that it has its merits, with regards to skill and creativity. (I also wonder if Kyle might be trying to legitimize his pursuit by calling it one). But cooking does not have to be more than what it is, and it does not make it any less because it is not, an art.

What foodies have done is turn a necessity into something that lacks universality, the 'snobbification' of a basic need. In that, very few people can actually appreciate an expensive and avante garde meal, or are willing to pay for one, but everyone has to eat. One of the things that separate food from art is the ability to experience it. In art, though very few people are able to afford the works, the ability to see and absorb (Or reject) the meanings of a work is shared by all. There is a freedom (Of interpretation) in art that food does not allow, even if the newness and complexity of a dish challenges expectations, it means nothing if no one can afford to taste it.

With art, the cognitive component overwhelms, consumes and perplexes, with food, it's olfactory/taste, though some might disagree. This is all a matter of opinion, but food lacks permanence and historical pertinence, and is eventually digested by the human body, and by time.