In Andrea Borghini’s article Can Food Be Art? He discusses reasons why food cannot be considered art. The first reason that Borghini gives for why food is not art is the caducity of food. Borghini states, “that food is fleeting: a sculpture, a painting, or a temple may last for centuries, maybe millennia; the delicious food that the restaurant El Bulli used to prepare just a few years ago is long and gone” (Borghini). What he is trying to argue is that because food is made to be eaten and disappear, it cannot be considered art. The second reason that Borghini mentions is the subjectivity of food. He says that, “one may object that gastronomic experiences are more subjective than other forms of aesthetic experiences. This is not simply because foods are fleeting, but also because taste is a destructive sense: you’ve got to destroy what you taste” (Borghini). Because everyone must taste and because no two people taste the exact same thing, taste is seen as an individual affair, and no two people can experience the exact same experience when eating something. The third and final reason that Borghini argues is the meaning of food. He believes, “that food cannot vehicle meaning” (Borghini). What he is trying to say is that food itself does not carry meaning, but more the gesture behind the food is what carries the meaning. Because of these three reasons, Borghini believes that food is not art.
In Elizabeth Telfer’s article Food As Art she mentions something similar to what Borghini mentioned about the subjectivity of food. Telfer argues that, “Because people have to eat them to appreciate them, and because each person necessarily eats a different part of the dish, it might seem that in the sphere of food no one can appreciate a complete work of art” (Tefler, 2002, p. 17). Wha t both Tefler and Borghini are saying is that there is a problem with food being art because each person consuming the food only gets to taste part of it, so no two people will get to ever experience the exact same piece of art. Tefler also brings up the issue of dishes of food being destroyed, much like Borghini does. What Borghini does not mention in his argument that Tefler does, is the structure of food. Tefler states that people often appreciate the structure of food, instead of appreciating what aesthetic is supposed to be appreciated, taste and smell which is immediately destroyed when someone eats a dish of food.
Unlike in Borghini’s article, Tefler discusses many issues with why food cannot but art, but also discusses why food is a minor art. She claims, “that the art of food is minor because it is not only simple but also limited in three important ways: food is necessarily transient, it cannot have meaning and it cannot move us” (Tefler, 2002, p.24). Both Tefler and Borghini mention how food cannot have meaning, but Tefler argues that this makes food a minor art, while Borghini argues that this does not make food an art at all. Tefler talks about how food does in a way have meaning, but not in the same way as major art forms do. Food is unable to represent deeper meanings or see things differently in the world or ourselves by looking at a piece of food, much like you can with a painting or other types of visual art. Tefler also discusses how art does not necessarily need to be representational to be considered art, while Borghini fails to address this argument. Although you may not be able to represent parts of the world through food Tefler argues that, “it creates its own world of tastes and smells” (Tefler, 2002, p. 25). Even though food may not represent other things in the world, it still creates something that is unique and can be aesthetically pleasing to those who consume it. Both of these articles make similar points towards the argument of food being art, but what Borghini fails to do for his arguments is discuss the ways that these can be disproven, much like Tefler does towards the end of her article. She identifies the major issues that many people have found with food being art, and proves that food can still be considered art even with these issues being true. In the last paragraph of her article she makes it clear that there are two distinct problems we have with food being art and these are, “We need to strike a balance between the aesthetic claims of the food on a particular occasion and the social claims of that occasion. We also need to find a middle way between two unsatisfactory attitudes to the aesthetic dimension of food” (Tefler, 2002, p. 25). If these two problems can be overcome then we can start to distinguish when food is considered art.
Borghini, A. (n.d.). Can Food Be Art?. About.com Philosophy. Retrieved April 27, 2014, from http://philosophy.about.com/od/Philosophical-Theories-Ideas/a/Can-Food-Be-Art.htm
Telfer, E. (2002). Food as art. In Neill, A. & Ridley, A (Eds.), Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2 ed., pp. 9-27). New York: Routledge.