i finally finished translating this blog into german: http://amfa2deutsch.blogspot.com/
chilibread masonry
it's funny how deceiving this video turned out - i wasn't attaching the cobblestones to the wall but the way i had set up the camera made it seem that way. i made a model of the town square, and cobblestones there are on the ground - this could be a gallery wall though....
sand/spice
1/4 tsp of ea: cinnamon, allspice, ginger, chili - extra 1/4 tsp of chili - 1 full tsp chili
covering the square with spices might turn out to be a rather costly enterprise. i'm considering mixing spices with sand and pigments. in my studio i've been combining spices and sand: the aroma is delightful, my studio has never smelled better.
mementos
these are the marks on the countertop after i removed the cut-out chilibread squares to put them on a baking sheet. unexpected ephemera.
more baking
i baked another batch of cobblestones, this time i managed to cut out smaller pieces. i intend to build a model of nuernberg's hauptmarkt to play out the scenario i envision covering a small area on the square with spices.
spice trade
in new york's murray hill district is a small cluster of stores selling mainly indian groceries. one of them has an immense array of spices. i bought cinnamon, chili, allspice, and ginger. paprika's intense and subtly nuanced reds certainly are tempting.
...verliefen sich im wald....
the book i remember from my childhoodfor a while i have been considering the significance of fairy tales in german culture; in relation to my project the tale of haensel und gretel and their ordeal in a witch's gingerbread house seem rather relevant. the siblings' forced migration from their home through a dark forest, the unsuccessful creation of a map using bread crumbs, and their fateful encounter with a witch at her gingerbread house, resonate within the context of my art practice. the story questions our perception of home by attempting to recreate a sense of security, familiarity, and dwelling in a seemingly protective and accommodating place (gingerbread house), which turns out to be a hazardous façade. the narrative describes the words and the process of heimisch/heimlich (heimlich: hidden, secretly) to unheimlich.
on another note: it is the sister who, in the end, saves her brother by killing the witch.
un/heimlich
lily markiewicz's question of viewing art and its affect: are we impulsively trying to rationalize the initial, subconscious experience by becoming aware of the emotional and aesthetic impact of a piece of art? does it eliminate our out-of-control sense after the revealing moment of affect in case the work is disconcerting or unheimlich? are we trying to rationalize our response by analyzing our emotional reaction and the aesthetic aspect of the piece? this is obviously one of enlightenment's argument. are we trying to reconcile?
in a wider aspect, all these questions are ingrained in my project. i react to the perception of discombobulation and the feeling of being out of control and of un-homeliness when i remember beginning to experience america as my new place of residence. these moments of initial affect and the feeling of confusion still happen but now occur only sporadically. 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.
i admire my mother's courage and enthusiasm for my project; she is re-establishing relationships with people with whom she might have parted on uneasy terms some time ago.
list of collaborators so far:
nuremberg: my mother, monika lenzer, matthias dachwald, michael matthaeus martha, ute little
usa: kaycee olsen
in a wider aspect, all these questions are ingrained in my project. i react to the perception of discombobulation and the feeling of being out of control and of un-homeliness when i remember beginning to experience america as my new place of residence. these moments of initial affect and the feeling of confusion still happen but now occur only sporadically. 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.
i admire my mother's courage and enthusiasm for my project; she is re-establishing relationships with people with whom she might have parted on uneasy terms some time ago.
list of collaborators so far:
nuremberg: my mother, monika lenzer, matthias dachwald, michael matthaeus martha, ute little
usa: kaycee olsen
postal exchange
exchange commodities: my mom has been sending material such as copies of photographs and other information about the hauptmarkt. some of it i requested, some of it came from books that she borrowed from friends. on monday i sent her a rather big package of pecans, cashews, allspice, candied and dried chili pepper, and a variety of baked cobblestones disguised as early christmas presents. it's a challenge, i wonder whether the package will get to nuremberg.....
cobblestone cutter
cookie cutter for cobblestones/two sizes/wonder whether it's going to make it to germany in one piece.
recipe
this is the recipe i use to make chilibread. i first converted the measurements from my mom's german cookbook into cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons, and then converted them back to grams and german pounds to translate my american version and send it to my mom.
bring honey and butter to a boil, let cool down to room temperature. combine all ingredients in food processor or mixer, fill into bowl and cover; store in warm place (florida: kitchen is fine, new york/germany: cooler or oven). let dough rest for eight days. roll out using lots of cornmeal, and cut out squares. bake on wax paper for 15-20 minutes on 315f. store in sealed container.
chilibread
2.6 cups honey
1.5 cups ground pecans, cashews, and walnuts
8 TS butter
2 eggs
zest of one orange and one lemon
2.6 cups cornmeal
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 TS allspice
1 tsp vanilla
2 TS candied chili peppers*
1/2 tsp dried chili peppers
*cut stem off chili peppers, cut lengthwise, scrape out seeds, and cut into thin strips; combine sugar (1 part) and water (1 part), add peppers, and boil everything on low heat for an hour. take out peppers and spread on baking sheet and dry at F 395 degrees for about 10 minutes. syrup's delicious over pancakes; but use caution. courtesy of ice cream ireland
bring honey and butter to a boil, let cool down to room temperature. combine all ingredients in food processor or mixer, fill into bowl and cover; store in warm place (florida: kitchen is fine, new york/germany: cooler or oven). let dough rest for eight days. roll out using lots of cornmeal, and cut out squares. bake on wax paper for 15-20 minutes on 315f. store in sealed container.
chilibread
2.6 cups honey
1.5 cups ground pecans, cashews, and walnuts
8 TS butter
2 eggs
zest of one orange and one lemon
2.6 cups cornmeal
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 TS allspice
1 tsp vanilla
2 TS candied chili peppers*
1/2 tsp dried chili peppers
*cut stem off chili peppers, cut lengthwise, scrape out seeds, and cut into thin strips; combine sugar (1 part) and water (1 part), add peppers, and boil everything on low heat for an hour. take out peppers and spread on baking sheet and dry at F 395 degrees for about 10 minutes. syrup's delicious over pancakes; but use caution. courtesy of ice cream ireland
bake traces
to photograph a still life of dirty kitchen utensils and left-over ingredients in a renaissance manner seemed an intuitive thing for me to do. dutch paintings of food and kitchens, documenting haphazardly arranged, or better disarranged, scenes of middle-class life and taste ----
edible rock
the similarity of color and texture of the cookies to actual cobblestones is amazing. i plan to spread spice over the center of the hauptmarkt onto its cobblestone pavement. the aromatic spices indicate the square's traditional purpose as a center of commerce. the color, a brownish red which seeps into the gaps between the cobblestones, touches on acts of torture, defamation, and humiliation that took place there in the past. i'll encourage visitors of the hauptmarkt to walk over the spices and thus distribute them over a larger area.
the perfect hausfrau
with my first batch of gingerbread - no, chilibread - cobblestones....super 8 footage coming soon....outfit courtesy of my mom...
variations
i've been working with my mom's recipe for gingerbread but replacing the traditional ingredients - mainly spices from china and india - with native american ingredients, substituting ginger with chili peppers, cinnamon with allspice, almonds and hazelnuts with pecans, walnuts, and cashews, sugar with honey and maple syrup, and flour with cornmeal, and adding lots of cocoa and vanilla. the dough needs to rest for eight days in "the warm kitchen", then i cut and shape it to simulate cobblestones to resemble the pavement of the hauptmarkt. these chilibread cobblestones will serve as the currency to trade stories for food. i intend to give this collection of recorded anecdotes to the city museum of nuremberg.
a page from my mom's cookbook with her and my scribbles: improvements on her part, conversions of measurements on mine.
flüstergewürz
the project's collaborators are my mother, a number of her friends, the city of nuremberg, and potentially matthias dachwald, curator at the kunsthalle nuremberg. the invented name of the project may be translated as "a spice that makes one whisper".
i have been making variations of a recipe for nuernberger lebkuchen, a type of gingerbread originally made 1395 in a bakery near the hauptmarkt - or so the story goes. nuremberg was one of the most northern cities on the extensions of the silk routes; bakers had access to spices from asia through nuremberg's role as a trade center in the middle ages. in this sense, nuremberg has been part of globalization very early on.
for now i've been working mostly with my mom; her friends will help to bake my version of nuremberg gingerbread as a commodity to trade stories for food. i intend to find people who agree to add to nuremberg's chronicles with their own stories and anecdotes related to nuremberg's town square, which i will record. i hope that matthias dachwald accepts that one of his roles in this project will be to act as a mediator between the city of nuremberg's administration officials and me.
this is an advertisement for commercially made nuernberger lebkuchen mailed to my parents. it features the typical shapes the cookies come in: circles, hearts, stars, squares covered with sugar and chocolate frosting.it promotes the company's worldwide delivery service and affirms that the goods are packed "fresh out of the oven" (ofenfrisch verpackt) and sent immediately "on their journey" (auf die Reise).
i have been making variations of a recipe for nuernberger lebkuchen, a type of gingerbread originally made 1395 in a bakery near the hauptmarkt - or so the story goes. nuremberg was one of the most northern cities on the extensions of the silk routes; bakers had access to spices from asia through nuremberg's role as a trade center in the middle ages. in this sense, nuremberg has been part of globalization very early on.
for now i've been working mostly with my mom; her friends will help to bake my version of nuremberg gingerbread as a commodity to trade stories for food. i intend to find people who agree to add to nuremberg's chronicles with their own stories and anecdotes related to nuremberg's town square, which i will record. i hope that matthias dachwald accepts that one of his roles in this project will be to act as a mediator between the city of nuremberg's administration officials and me.
this is an advertisement for commercially made nuernberger lebkuchen mailed to my parents. it features the typical shapes the cookies come in: circles, hearts, stars, squares covered with sugar and chocolate frosting.it promotes the company's worldwide delivery service and affirms that the goods are packed "fresh out of the oven" (ofenfrisch verpackt) and sent immediately "on their journey" (auf die Reise).
what do I know
i'm collecting information on the history of the nuremberg hauptmarkt. this image was taken around the same time of my great-grandfather's arrest. at this point the nazis had renamed the hauptmarkt adolf-hitler-platz.
this is from an article in the local paper.
this is from an article in the local paper.
the story behind it
this is the only existing photograph of my great-grandfather. when i was a child, i was frightened by this image, by the translucency and fragility of my great-grandfather's face. he died in his early 50s of stomach cancer.an episode from this man's life informs my art project. my father told me fairly recently that "well, your great-grandfather, my grandfather, was a socialist and the gestapo arrested him in 1934." he had criticized hitler's regime by announcing his political opinion on the hauptmarkt, the town square in nuremberg. soon after, police took him to the station and kept him there until his wife and three daughters pleaded with the officials to release him. they claimed not having a source of income and would starve if their husband and father was being held in jail. he was released shortly thereafter.
this story is my family's connection to nuremberg's town square. had my dad not mentioned it to me, it would have eventually been forgotten. how many stories such as my great-grandfather's, are there? who remembers them? which stories do people remember and which ones would they rather forget? with my project, i want to add to the chronicles of nuremberg by recording stories related to the hauptmarkt, narrated by people in their own voices. the square's history of being a center of trade and commerce spurred my interest - i intend to exchange baked goods for anecdotes...
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