La simpleza / Simplicity

As regards Documenta 12, from the outset Spain showed a lukewarm reaction to one of the most annoying dishonours to be concocted by an idiot: the selection of a chef as the best option from the Spanish artistic medium. It is important to recall the affirmation made, a few months ago, by the director of Documenta 12 regarding his decision to include chef Ferran Adrià in the show: "Currently, no one in Spain, from that generation, can compare to his level of formal intelligence." Roger M. Buergel invited Adrià to take part in Documenta thinking that he had had a brilliant idea. It seems that Adrià's acolytes also thought it would be a great idea for the visible head of the business fabric that the chef represents to take part in an artistic event, although to date none of them have proven they have any idea of what that Documenta is. They incessantly talk about the Documenta "fair," as do the uninformed journalists from the general media. Buergel has done a very bad job if he has not even been able to tell Adrià and his cohorts that Documenta is not an art fair. Precisely the detail of the entourage that followed Adrià to Kassel is one of the most curious among all the incidents that surround this sad event. Contributors, colleagues (Juan Mari Arzak and his daughters, Andoni Luis Aduriz...) all travelled to Kassel for the days of the preview . Was this multitudinous trip paid for by the "grants" that the State Society for Foreign Cultural Action ( seacex ), the Council of Roses and the Costa Brava Pirineu Tourist Board, as well as Caixa Girona, provided for Adrià's ghost participation in Documenta? Not to mention the foolishness, which some of these institutions are paying for, of taking two people from Kassel to eat at Adrià's restaurant for the duration of Documenta. Thus, during the three months Documenta is on show, Adrià's restaurant will be a delocalised "pavilion," which Buergel has believed to be a very original invention of his, the same as painting the walls of the exhibition venues in bright colours or positioning modern and contemporary art alongside historical pieces...

As regards Adrià, obviously his extensive knowledge on gastronomy is comparable to his ignorance regarding art, and most certainly about high culture in general. Otherwise he would not have trusted Buergel's brainless proposal. Conversely, Adrià has wanted to convince himself that a documentary about his restaurant on the channel Arte and a few interested initiatives -like the exhibition of second-class works linked to his dishes currently on show in Barcelona at an unknown gallery- are already proof enough to enter art history. Neither Buergel nor Adrià nor the chef's contributors realise that art history in our times will not be written using what is published in the papers. Like all idols with feet of clay, Adrià has let himself get caught up by the whirlwind of his own fame. Buergel, bragging, naïvely, of what he has learnt from art, simply uttered the words -which have been reproduced over and over again in the media-: "The question of what is and what is not art stopped being important a long time ago"... Buergel has not heard that that question is still as fresh as when it first emerged, when plastic arts entered the Olympus of major artistic manifestations, back in the late 15 th century. It is, in fact, the issue that has been fuelling the wealthiest debates since the mid-20 th century. Yet Buergel has decided to talk to the mass media and has aspired to attract television and media specialised in tourism and gastronomy to Kassel thanks to the manoeuvre of placing the name of a renowned star chef among the names of the artists. What is it to him if this Documenta 12 goes down in art history as a dangerous symptom of the downfall of this grand event? Adrià, on the other hand, has thought that with this stratagem he would be crowned with the laurels of having taken cooking to the most elevated altar of culture. Is there a culinary art? There may be. Yet, can it be compared to visual arts? It is embarrassing to see a curator attempting to support such a cheap argument at an event, like Documenta, which over the last thirty years had become the quintessential showcase of the most sophisticated solutions and aesthetic discourses in the Western art world.

Translation: Laura F. Farhall