
How Food Replaced Art as High Culture - dulse
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/how-food-replaced-art-as-high-culture.html
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dulse
"A curry is not an idea, even if its creation is the result of one. Meals can
evoke emotions, but only very roughly and generally, and only within a very
limited range — comfort, delight, perhaps nostalgia, but not anger, say, or
sorrow, or a thousand other things. Food is highly developed as a system of
sensations, extremely crude as a system of symbols."

I think this is really wrong, but I feel like this is a good pointer to where
we are heading in fine cuisine. The false dichotomy in the article is between
Old Masters and organic markets/good risotto). But a better apples-to-apples
comparison would be between contemporary art and contemporary cuisine. If you
compare the emotional experience between an Alinea or El Buli vs. something
like Dia:Beacon, it seems like it's getting much closer. I would absolutely
describe the experience of eating at Alinea as "emotional" and full of ideas.

The interesting thing is that art isn't just about emotion - it can involve
emotion, but it can involve a lot of other things too. What I look forward to
is cuisine that can be self-critical, hostile, sarcastic, naive, quiet, empty,
etc. What would the Agnes Martin of food look like? The On Kawara? The Merlin
Carpenter?

I think we're generally getting more sophisticated in our cultural
appreciation for lots of reasons, including the internet allowing much easier
dissemination of sophisticated ideas and the flattening of accessibility to
good cultural curators. Unlike this author, I don't think food is replacing
art: it's just thriving alongside. There's a rising tide that's raising all
the cultural boats. I'm really bullish on contemporary art for this reason.

