The question that remains is: can this type of making of cakes exist outside of art? If I were to go into the farmer’s market in Union Square, set up a stand and just give away cake, would this still be seen as art? An act of kindness? Would the venders scold me for not purchasing a booth? Would I be arrested for my sweet gesture? Then again, how important is it for these cakes to be perceived as artwork? Can the same effect still be achieved when these cakes are served at a critique or found in a gallery?
© Danielle Goldsmith
Moving away from the traditional 9” pan I made two different cakes for open studios – one in the shape of a sphere, the other a book. The sphere was a simple white cake covered with fondant that had been graffitied all over. The cake read, “The way up and they way are down are one in the same” with colors bleeding into one another. The book cake was a 24” piece painted yellow with text on top reading “This is a terrible book”. When the cake was cut, the quote fragmented into such sayings as “This is terrible”, “His is terrible”, and so forth, making the cake a social sculpture for strangers to gather at and eat from. The most exciting moment wasn’t the preparing, cutting, or eating of the cake – it was afterwards, when I saw the remnants of the original piece. Like Daniel Spoerri’s Snare Pictures, the cake and fondant are found in chance positions (in order or disorder) and are fixed (‘snared’) as they are found. Only the picture plane has changed.[1]
Daniel Spoerri, Sevilla-Serie Nr. 29 1992 © Daniel Spoerri
I used adhesive to mount the fondant pieces and remnants of the cake on a gold serving plate that is placed on to a wall at eye level. What was once horizontal, on a tabletop, is now vertical on a wall. In doing this, I questioned if I was consumed by the idea of placing food in the art world. Rauschenberg said “Art is what an artist says it is”, meaning that the context of a piece is defined with the invisible institution of art. The context changes the way we look at it and when we say it is Art with a capital ‘A’. We made the right choice to become Artists as we hold the steering wheel. Whatever we say it is, it is.
[1] Spoerri, Daniel. “Snared Picture”, 1960-2008. Collection Helga Hahn, Cologne.
