This week’s discussion topic is about food of art. The teacher gave us an reading about food of art which is absolutely make me touched. I also found another interesting article besides the reading named “Art for Eat’s Sake”, which is written by Hart, Joseph(2012), he mentioned that some artists trying to using a certain way to make people involve in the attraction of agriculture, for example, they using designing, building, planting and harvesting a thriving container garden to connect the relationship of people and food. They considered that an art of food is not only focus on the food itself, but also focus on how to grow the food by personal’s industrious work and enjoy the product of personal’s labor. It is obviously that “Art” are able to defined by an activity or a kind of specific food.
Compare to the two article, they have two primary difference. First, the reading resource which is written by Tefler,E.(2002), his opinions are more abstract. He points out the word “aesthetic” first in the first paragraph to make readers feel more connected to the word “art.” After that, he describes the works of art and different people’s perspective of food and art and compare the food of art to other forms of art, such as dance and music. It use a bunch of discuss to analyse the food of art and people’s thoughts in a more logically way. It’s like a teacher try to teach you to think and give an answer for the question of “Is food art?” however, contradict the first reading, I think that the second article is more straight to understand because the article”Art for Eats’s sake” is focus on how the artists trying to attract more people to engaged in planting their own food because they have an key word, which is “green”, they states that:”Today, just 12 present of the nation’s farms produce 84 present of our food(and receive billions in federal subsidies), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA).” (Page 35)They also hold exhibitions for people who are unfamiliar to the horticulture and planting. Food is not only the purpose they want people to know, but also the process of how to grow flesh food materials. The article uses numerous citation of people’s idea and experience to demonstrate their effort of hard working. However, this is not the only different between the two articles.
The second primary difference is that they concern about different point of view. The first article which written by Tefler, E.(2002) concerned only about food, which is already cooked for people to eat and then discuss about whether it is art or not. According to the”Food as Art”:” food and drink never constitute works of art in the classifying sense. People sometimes treat them as works of art, and I have argued that we can compare the creator of a recipe to a composer, and the cook who follows one to a performer.” (page 21)He is focusing cooking is also an art of food because he think that cook can be a good performer. Imaging you are walking to an Japanese restaurant and enjoy the process of a cooker making a sushi. When the time you appreciate the way of cutting fish, you are appreciate an art work of food. However, another article named “eats for arts’s sake” not only focus on the cooked food, but also focus on the the designing, building, planting a garden for growing some materials for food. According to the Hart, Joseph(2012), he states that “In other words, one of the vital offerings that artists–especially public artists versed in the dynamics of community collaboration–can contribute to the food movement is a new social dynamic that transcends economic relationships.” (Page 37)In fact, they are trying to change economy system by changing people’s mind, which is a bigger picture compare to the first reading.
In sum, both of the two articles are taking about art of food. However, they use different way and different subjects to describe the relationship between art and food. Terler, E use some abstract perspective to describe the form of art and how can cooked food become an art works while the Hart, Joseph’s article, which described some people’s activities to make people have interests of growing their own materials of food, is more straight and easy to understand. Joseph is focusing on not only food but also some gardening and horticulture while Terler,E only focus on the real cooked food.
Hart, Joseph (2012), Public Art Review; Spring/Summer2012, Issue 46, p34-37, 4p
Tefler, E. (2002). Food as Art. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.)Arguing about Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed,. Chap. 2) New York, NK: Routledge.