Preserve

Like many, I too had a stint in the hospitality industry. On and off, from making literally tons of sausages in my dads butchery as a teenager on summer holidays, to later on cutting croissant triangles in a mangy hotel kitchen, until my first quarter century elapsed the flirtation with food preparation held. For a year or two I collected recipes, noting down well worn formulas and read books by Michelin Star cooks like Marco Pierre White whose recipes were inevitably too difficult and expensive for me. In the end the trade off for all the odd hours was seemingly little more than a dead social life. And so hospitality quickly loosened it’s grasp, much like a doomed relationship. It was decided after all that consuming, even on a meager budget, was more enjoyable than slaving in a commercial kitchen. The relationship died.

The hospitality workforce is comprised from a variety of societal backgrounds. From the near infinite range of individual circumstances there are several traits which usually determine the path of the chef. I will not divulge these hackneyed contingencies, suffice to say there is one road in particular, lesser traveled, usually more esteemed and even for what it is worth, widely celebrated. It is the notorious path of egotism in want of genius. It is shared in particular with the modernist era artist. Thankfully for the art world at least, the baton of ‘troubled genius’ has now largely passed into the hands of the celebrity chef, leaving artists to labour away more intelligently than some previous generations under the guise Laurie Anderson succinctly termed; ‘content providers’. Time will tell whether this recent displacement in the narrative of art history will be remembered; preserved.

Nevertheless, due to this somewhat shared history, it is of interest whenever the convergence of two cultural bulwarks such as art and food meet. It is just as T.S. Eliot said in his retrospectively well “preserved” 1948 essay, Notes towards the Definition of Culture: ‘it is only by an overlapping and sharing of interests, by participation and mutual appreciation, that the cohesion necessary for culture can obtain. A religion requires not only a body of priests who know what they are doing, but a body of worshipers who know what is being done’.

Each of the artists involved in the group show ‘Preserve’ has, through a course of action involving the home territory of the heretofore vaunted chef, licentiously picked up another vaunted baton, the victual notion of repast, (namely) the discerning act of providing food for a meal. Subsequently, each of the artists involved in this project have undertaken a conceptual navigation of the idea of repast, incorporating ideas and positions from their varied practices. It is a sharing of interests between food and art which brings about Preserve. The show represents a collaboration between Exhibition Practice students from Unitec’s Bachelor of Design programme. A one night only event, visitors will be invited to warm their senses and taste buds whilst experiencing the variety of conceptual positions on offer.

MJ Kjarr (catalogue text)

‘Preserve’ was a happening at Alberton Restuarant, Mt Albert, Auckland, November 3, 2005