Can food be art?

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Maharlika

^^^ I'm suspecting a south American country like Argentina. It can't be in Spain; interesting perspective.

Actually in Austria. It's one of Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch's performance pieces.

 

[crazyquik]

I would say that wedding cakes and pastries can become art; fleeting art intended to be destroyed.

I'm not sure if any food can become art because of preparation and plating. Could maccaronni and cheese become art in the right hands?

 

[StephenHero]

Food is a craft. Artists don't work in corn or peanut butter.

 

[Qzar]

but they can work in oil and crushed up fllowers?

 

[StephenHero]

Eating is a nutritional process, thus the preparation of food is merely a means for greater enjoyment of that process. If I were to theatrically digest a vitamin is that a piece of performance art? No. Culinary artists are in the same category as shoemakers, landscapers, product designers, and architects as creative artisans and craftsmen who refine a skill with vision for a common purpose within daily life. They use creativity but are bounded by realistic constraints that impede the goal of creating a more ideal vision of humanity. Painting, drawing, sculpture, drama, poetry, prose, and music are the only true art forms without pragmatic limits for expression.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

Food is a craft. Artists don't work in corn or peanut butter.

Or elephant dung?

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]

Foodstuffs can be used in art, but is not art.

Food's essentially utilitarian role precludes it from being art.

 

[Qzar]

Culinary artists are in the same category as shoemakers, landscapers, product designers, and architects as creative artisans and craftsmen who refine a skill with vision for a common purpose within daily life.

Architects may take offense at this. It is true that there are a lot of architects who work for firms cranking out cookie cutter houses and club houses but that doesn't mean that architecture as a discipline isn't an art form. Illustrators aren't artists in this sense but illustration is an art form. A friend of mine used to live in a Paul Rudolph house and just stepping foot in that building was a life changing event, it was a work of art. I don't see a huge difference between the Taj Mahal and the Mona Lisa. I don't see the difference between a modern minimalist painting and the Sydney Opera House or a work by Frank Gehry. And this whole realistic constraints thing is kind of bullshit. How is architecture more realistically restricted than painting or sculpture... or even music and drama? They all have limitations... artists have never let that get in the way though.

I think too many people are confusing the question that is being asked here. Art is not just visual art and NO cooking is not a visual art (or at least it shouldn't be treated as one). There are other arts that aren't visual like music. Look at music and you can begin to draw a definition that would more accurately cover food as art. I'm going to make a bold statement by saying that if music is art, then food is art. If anyone can create an accurate argument against that... I'll give em a cookie.


(To the view that food is utilitarian and thus not art: MUSIC is also utilitarian since it is a form of communication that humans perfected into a way of expression and cultural identity. We needed to hear in order to survive and we took this utilitarian necessity and turned it into a work of art. If food was merely utilitarian then it would all just taste the same and look the same)

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

Or elephant dung?

 

[Go Surface]

I've used blood in a piece before. It was trite then, it's trite now.

Yawn, I'm bored, you're boring, I'm yawning.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by GoSurface

I've used blood in a piece before. It was trite then, it's trite now.

Yawn, I'm bored, you're boring, I'm yawning.

Menstrual blood?

 

[Go Surface]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Menstrual blood?

From a lifted tampon. Like, so perverse.

 

[Fuuma]

Culinary artists are in the same category as shoemakers, landscapers, product designers, and architects as creative artisans and craftsmen who refine a skill with vision for a common purpose within daily life.

Architects may take offense at this. It is true that there are a lot of architects who work for firms cranking out cookie cutter houses and club houses but that doesn't mean that architecture as a discipline isn't an art form. Illustrators aren't artists in this sense but illustration is an art form. A friend of mine used to live in a Paul Rudolph house and just stepping foot in that building was a life changing event, it was a work of art. I don't see a huge difference between the Taj Mahal and the Mona Lisa. I don't see the difference between a modern minimalist painting and the Sydney Opera House or a work by Frank Gehry. And this whole realistic constraints thing is kind of bullshit. How is architecture more realistically restricted than painting or sculpture... or even music and drama? They all have limitations... artists have never let that get in the way though.

I think too many people are confusing the question that is being asked here. Art is not just visual art and NO cooking is not a visual art (or at least it shouldn't be treated as one). There are other arts that aren't visual like music. Look at music and you can begin to draw a definition that would more accurately cover food as art. I'm going to make a bold statement by saying that if music is art, then food is art. If anyone can create an accurate argument against that... I'll give em a cookie.


(To the view that food is utilitarian and thus not art: MUSIC is also utilitarian since it is a form of communication that humans perfected into a way of expression and cultural identity. We needed to hear in order to survive and we took this utilitarian necessity and turned it into a work of art. If food was merely utilitarian then it would all just taste the same and look the same)

If all dildoes were utilitarians they would all look the same, well you certainly wouldn't have a colour choice although you could have different shapes. So dildoes are art? What about can openers and garbage bags and mixers, wait, oh ****, we live in the "design age" and daily, utilitarian items have an ornamental aspect.

 

[mordecai]

@ label king...i think maybe paul mccarthy is a better touchstone for food in art than nitsch is. or do you eat raw meat off the bone?

 

[mordecai]

also, i love when people bring up art on this board.