Tired of their artistic creations being devoured and destroyed within minutes, chefs are taking to capturing their dishes on camera in order for them to be admired for a little longer.
As the tendency to capture meals on social media sites by diners rises, according to The Guardian these great works of ‘art’ on a plate are being recorded for posterity by their creators now too.
Leading the way in this style of exhibiting is Michelin-starred chef Julien Burlat who churns out impressive plates at restaurant Dome in Antwerp. Not only does he snap his delights, he actually has a makeshift studio set up to photograph dishes while they are in the ‘pass’, the place where a courses go from kitchen to restaurant. A bird’s eye view is captured for the chef’s records.
His technology was deemed so clever it spread to other restaurants in Belgium and attention from Flemish artist Jef Geys followed. His focus is on “superimposing economies of meaning that run counter-intuitively to the pervasive structures of the art world”. To explain, he is in the business of proposing the blow up Antwerp’s Royal Museum of Fine Art after it had hosted his show in 1971.
With also an interest in food and people, Geys’s latest show is at Cubitt Gallery in London and involves one of these mini-studios being set up in five well-known restaurants in Kent and London. The images are chosen at random to show up on a webfeed and Gey’s added a headline from the news along with a photo which corresponds with the moment the food was taken.
Michelin-starred chef Tom Sellers got involved with the project and explains that he’s glad he has some kind of editorial control over published photos in his restaurant for once: “You should see the food paparazzi. Some people come in with cameras as big as the table; 95% of my customers take pictures of their plates, for Instagram and Twitter. You can’t ban it. But it doesn’t always do my food justice.”
So it seems food is not just for cooking and eating anymore. It is for photographing and watching too.