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Marina Abramovic: The Artist as Dessert Maker

By Amy Zimmer | January 13, 2011 8:46am | Updated on January 13, 2011 1:28pm

By Amy Zimmer

DNAinfo News Editor

MANHTATTAN - After her much talked-about Museum of Modern Art retrospective where Marina Abramovic clocked more than 700 hours sitting silently and staring at a rotating cast of museum guests sitting in the chair across from her, perhaps the performance artist felt the need to do something more explosive.

Her next piece is called Volcano Flambé — but it won't be in a museum. It’s a $20 dessert on the menu at the Park Avenue Winter restaurant at East 63rd Street from now through March 20.

Abramovic's flambé is the first of the restaurant’s four seasonal artist-chef collaborations that's the culmination of many months of collaboration between the artist who famously filled MoMA with live nudes last spring and Park Avenue Winter's executive chef Kevin Lasko.

The dessert is an avant gardé take on a traditional Baked Alaska, with dark chocolate ice cream, almond sponge cake and banana mousse encased in a Swiss meringue and topped with gold sugar crumbs. The dish is set afire with dark rum, and organizers promise the treat "triggers all of the senses and takes diners on a journey of hot and cold, soft and hard, dark and light, and sweet and savory," according to a press release from Creative Time, the public arts nonprofit that curated the culinary meetup.

Other artists whose dessert-art will be on the menu include Janine Antoni, Paul Ramirez Jonas and Michael Rakowitz.

According to organizers, the act of diners eating the dessert will become the performance.

To get the full experience of Abramovic's dessert, diners will get an MP3 player and headset so they can listen to Abramovic guiding them through the experience of the dish.

Customers will also get to take home a collection of Abramovic's "spirit cooking" recipes.