My mother and I recently had a conversation about the immediacy of various art forms. The way a painting confronts you today and exists in your same space, while literature and films unfurl over time: one in your head and the other a fictional, diegetic world.
Writing about these works of art, time is a crucial factor, discussing the ways it has aged, the way it existed once before, and the way it exists now. The history of art (and literature and film) often accounts for artifacts that still exist. Which means that in our moment, our eyes and ears can be engaged by these various works of art, perhaps touch in clothing, but rarely smell or taste.
Yet these senses structure one of the most quotidian of human interactions: meals.
I had never before thought of dinners as a form of art, but recently I've found myself pairing spices in the same manner I once paired pigments for basic color theory. I begin to rely on certain flavors (lemon juice for one) and across my dishes, a style began to develop.
Shows like Chef's Table demonstrate the ways that food can be an art form—showcasing dishes plated in particularly ornate, color-coordinated ways. Yet the argument for food's status as art does not need to rely on plating. As a cultural product satisfying one of our senses, meals sound a lot like other forms of art. It begets the question of needs and wants and where art must fall. But just as architecture is both design and shelter, so too is food a locus for expression and style, while still satisfying our base desires.
For food of the past, we lose its taste and cannot experience the original work's sensations. We can only hope that images or recipes exist for us to recreate today. Images of the food, like photographs of dance, do not convey the proper sense. Without taste or smell, or movement in the other, the creator's purpose is lost.
Instructions, perhaps, are the art form—like Felix Gonzalez-Torres' Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) from 1991. Each iteration is "Original."
My recent attempts at art history have been immersive, soaking in the music of a period, alongside the poetry and art. I wonder now if food should enter that equation. Studying in-situ in café's in Vienna gave me an architectural sense of where Oskar Kokoschka sat and put me near a similar pulse of the city, but perhaps the smells of sachertorte should matter as well.
While I may not begin to cook meals alongside every paper, this concern raises the question about why food should be excluded from the pantheon of high arts. Underlying all cultural experience is survival. Every artist ate. Now we should talk about that too.