desserts by moma executive chef lynn bound and pastry chef christina nastasi...
based on traditional german recipes
handing out chilibread samples in the hope of finding collaboratorsdesserts at moma
desserts by moma executive chef lynn bound and pastry chef christina nastasi...handing out chilibread samples in the hope of finding collaborators
chilibread for starters
my first batch this year - i made these cookies to give to my fellow dessert makers and tasters at moma this friday. i hope the treats will entice some of the bakers to participate in my collaborative project.
pass it on
flüstergewürz is a long-distance, collaborative project involving families and friends, neighbors and strangers, artists and non-artists, to contemplate concepts such as home, trust, memory, migration, and separation. below is my american version of my mom's recipe for nuremberg gingerbread. please use this as a basis to create your own cookies.
2.6 cups honey/bit of maple syrup
1.5 cups ground nuts (cashews, pecans/hickory, walnuts)
8 TS butter
2 eggs
zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
2.6 cups cornmeal
½ tsp allspice
1 tsp vanilla
2 TS candied chili peppers
½ tsp dried chili peppers
½ tsp ground ancho chile pepper
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
combine all ingredients and let stand on a warm place, covered, for eight days. use cookie cutters or other shapes to form cookies. preheat oven to 315°f and bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes.
for my version i substitute ingredients found in traditional nuremberg gingerbread, such as cinnamon, ginger, hazelnuts and almonds with ingredients indigenous to america. i call it chilibread.
ancient names for gingerbread are honey bread (egypt), pepper cake, and honey cake. gingerbread can be stored for many months and is said to only get better with time.
collaborate with me and make your version of chilibread. bring me some of your cookies as well as your recipe. participate in an international collaboration between american and german bakers. i would like to collect these recipes and publish them in a book.
contact: angelika.rinnhofer(at)gmail.com
a synopsis of sorts
summer in berlin - intense and revealing years culminated in visual and verbal manifestations. i've been reflecting on critiques and questions and am slowly sensing their effect - on my practice and other things.
a performance: devouring chilibread - consuming art 
nuremberg secrets
my mother has been my agent, she set up appointments with at least 20 people for me to meet and exchange stories for chilibread. the amount of chilibread she and her friends baked is astounding. i basically got off the plane, took a two-hour nap until my mom woke me up to start our audio-tour.
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she has established a community of collaborators for me to engage with. her role in this project is crucial as she is well known in her community. people trust her and thus it was easier for them to trust me, an outsider, an artist. most of my collaborators are of working and lower middle class background. contemporary art is not essential to their lives. nevertheless, i sensed a desire to communicate, to tell a story, to speak to someone about one's memories. i realized that the topic i asked about - the hauptmarkt and events relating to its history or purpose - was insignificant, like a topic in a casual conversation. often the narrators let themselves get carried away, recalling memories of war, far-away native countries, childhoods, and - lost pets.
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artist as listener, healer, therapist, counselor, adviser, victim (!) - most important though: artist as interpreter. people long for interpretations of their experience. risk: artist's interpretation not accepted by non-artists - precarious situation.
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most people invited us to their homes or their work place. my mom and i were guests, we were sometimes treated to lunch or dinner, and we tasted some amazing wines. others were surprised and confused by our visit, nervous about our intrusion.
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.
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in a public art piece, trust is an essential component. from my own experience it is difficult to establish trust, it seems that inquiry, criticism, and doubt don't support the development of it. here is where my own predicament comes in: as an artist i feel the urge to migrate, not to get too comfortable, to challenge the notion of "home". trust, however, needs stability, a community. public art involved with its audience, needs a community. how far do i want to go? how much do i want to be a member of a community? if germany is one big, closed-off, inward looking community, then this is certainly a major reason for me not to feel comfortable there. perhaps this discomfort is the motivator i need to make art.
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.
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nostalgia often derives from a lack of community - like the stories from nuremberg. when i'm not in germany i become nostalgic for it, when i'm there i see the reality of it - i sense my "non presence". maybe this is how to best describe freud's idea of unheimlich: the uncanny.
.
.
.
she has established a community of collaborators for me to engage with. her role in this project is crucial as she is well known in her community. people trust her and thus it was easier for them to trust me, an outsider, an artist. most of my collaborators are of working and lower middle class background. contemporary art is not essential to their lives. nevertheless, i sensed a desire to communicate, to tell a story, to speak to someone about one's memories. i realized that the topic i asked about - the hauptmarkt and events relating to its history or purpose - was insignificant, like a topic in a casual conversation. often the narrators let themselves get carried away, recalling memories of war, far-away native countries, childhoods, and - lost pets.
.
.
.
artist as listener, healer, therapist, counselor, adviser, victim (!) - most important though: artist as interpreter. people long for interpretations of their experience. risk: artist's interpretation not accepted by non-artists - precarious situation.
.
.
.
most people invited us to their homes or their work place. my mom and i were guests, we were sometimes treated to lunch or dinner, and we tasted some amazing wines. others were surprised and confused by our visit, nervous about our intrusion.
.
.
.
in a public art piece, trust is an essential component. from my own experience it is difficult to establish trust, it seems that inquiry, criticism, and doubt don't support the development of it. here is where my own predicament comes in: as an artist i feel the urge to migrate, not to get too comfortable, to challenge the notion of "home". trust, however, needs stability, a community. public art involved with its audience, needs a community. how far do i want to go? how much do i want to be a member of a community? if germany is one big, closed-off, inward looking community, then this is certainly a major reason for me not to feel comfortable there. perhaps this discomfort is the motivator i need to make art.
.
.
.
nostalgia often derives from a lack of community - like the stories from nuremberg. when i'm not in germany i become nostalgic for it, when i'm there i see the reality of it - i sense my "non presence". maybe this is how to best describe freud's idea of unheimlich: the uncanny.
brain wave II
my dad and my two brothers ca. 1969 - a dad with his two sons on the banks of the hudson near beacon ca. 2010
brain wave IV
my parents and i skating on the silverlake in nuernberg ca. 1966 - skaters at rockefeller center in ny ca. 2010
darts and spice
while my mother and her friends are baking chilibread in nuernberg, i have been considering and re-considering the planned performance on the hauptmarkt. after speaking with the manager in charge of events on the hauptmarkt, and her advice about the permanent windy conditions there after the demolition of one of the buildings at the square, i needed to think over the idea of a layer of spice covering the cobblestones. a small tent or kiosk, filled with the aroma of spices resulting from burning or boiling and laying out ginger, chili, cinnamon, etc., will be the stage of the installation. recorded stories about the hauptmarkt will be playing and there will be a recording station outside the tent for visitors to add to the story collection. i will give out spice samples and ask my audience to prepare a dish with these spices. i'll invite them to come back the next day and let me try the dish.
in the meantime i have been concerned with the issue of dispersing the spice aroma. while at sideshow in brooklyn i'd like to release aroma in the gallery. explosion as a means to disperse the spices seems a feasible option. i developed a spice game by attaching spice-filled balloons to a wall and trying to hit the targets with darts. at the moment of impact the balloons explode and spread the spice and its aroma across a small space in the gallery.
no new york
witnessing america - recording america (new york) in photographs (nicolas: concept of 'no' in avant-garde) - i attempt with these photographs of my american environment to not draw attention to any specific motif/concept/object but to simply describe and thus witness the place where i live - this has been extremely difficult as it is the nature of photography to document, to draw attention to a specific object or event, and to archive. is it essential, significant, meaningful to take these pictures and print/copy/multiply/publish them?
remembering my grandmother's america - in super 8. i have been filming: new york, beacon, myself.
zarah's legacy
cindy sherman was motivated to compose her film stills by her memories of watching b/w films from the '50s and '60s. my super 8 clips simulate my grandmother's posing for her husband's, and later, my uncle's camera - in 1960s and '70s california. i am appropriating my grandmother's poses, her waving for the camera (to us?), her posing like a silent movie star (she adored zarah leander). when i was a child, over the years, my parents received a number of super 8 films from my grandmother in california. i have not seen these films for many years, but i am re-enacting what i remember in front of the camera: my grandmother being proud of her new life in america. i rely on my memory to recall the poses etc, but i am also adding my own movements, my own poses. i always wondered about the reason of my grandmother's extroverted and suggestive poses - whom was she posing for? for us? for the filmmaker?
migrating between a (art) and r (research)
in my current art practice i find myself mentally migrating back to nuremberg quite frequently to anticipate the process and reactions of collaborators as well as other participants in flüstergewürz. the painter judith tucker’s discussion of the concept of home and sigmund freud’s explanation of the uncanny, the un-homely (unheimlich), resonate insofar as my own concernment with the concept of home has been dissolved somewhere along my migratory paths. i truly do not feel “at home” anywhere, but i also do not miss the sense of belonging to a geographically determined location. i am quite comfortable with the idea of establishing my own narrative, whether associated with germany, the u.s., or the migratory activity in between. i give credit for this sentiment to the contemporary situation to attain permission to travel freely whenever and wherever one desires. this is a fortunate circumstance, and i am always astonished to witness travelers ending up stranded for hours, sometimes days, in an airport, caused by a weather-related delay. the sense of entitlement of the contemporary traveler related to the certainty to migrate freely takes the relative ease and comfort of modern travel for granted.
i don't consider my artistic process as an attempt to establish a sense of home for myself, but i realize that connecting with familiar and unfamiliar people in nuremberg possesses some kind of therapeutical bearing for me. in this sense, the aesthetic and psychological impact of my project on its witnesses (including myself) could be considered as an internal migration between safety and uncertainty, between the heimisch (domestic) and the unheimlich.
examining germany as the place of my origin and relating its idiosyncrasies to my voluntary migration is taking on a significant role in my art practice.
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