Fri 8/31 @ 6-9PM
Pushing artists out of their comfort zones often yields unexpected and amazing results. That’s basically the concept by the multidisciplinary Heights Arts’ second At Table: Cleveland Culinaria exhibition.
The nonprofit community organization, which explores performing and visual arts, has partnered chefs Douglas Katz (Fire Food & Drink, Provenance, and the Katz Club Diner), Gerry Grim (EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute), Zeleke Belete (Zoma) and Karen Small (The Flying Fig) with 24 visual artists.
The truly imaginative culinary experiment transforms the Heights Arts gallery into four uniquely themed installations that speak to the art of food and community through the materials we commonly use to eat and drink.
While the opening reception takes Fri 8/31 @ 6-9pm at its Lee Road gallery, the exhibit also features four chef/artist team events — the exploration of post-Civil War industrial era with Katz (Sun 9/9 @ 5pm), the symbolic use of recycled and reclaimed objects with Grim (Sun 9/16 @ 5pm), the melting pot of traditions from Africa with Belete (Sun 9/23 @ 5pm) and the inspiration of local urban farms with Small (Sun 10/7 @ 5pm).
CoolCleveland talked to Heights Arts executive director Rachel Bernstein about At Table: Cleveland Culinaria.
CoolCleveland: What’s the concept behind At Table: Cleveland Culinaria?
Rachel Bernstein: The first time was a couple of years ago. We had five teams, five chefs and a team of artists that created tablescapes around the teams. That was extremely successful, so we’re bringing it back.
CC: How did you land on the exhibit concept, which is truly unique?
RB: I think it was an idea that came up in our exhibition committee meeting. It’s really great to engage the community in a way that they may not be engaged in an exhibition normally. So by pairing the artists with a chef, they’re sort of working off a theme of community and food. We’re engaging chefs who may not have really had this experience before. In fact, I can guarantee they haven’t.
CC: What stands out as different is the idea of having the chefs pick an artistic, non-culinary theme to explore.
RB: Yeah, it’s sort of stretching them. Cooking cuisine is an art, and it’s just sort of translating that into the visual and arts. It’s a really interesting idea. And also the artist just sort of working with somebody who is not really a curator, but is acting as the curator, can be inspiring to them to just sort of see how food applies to everybody. So they’re stretching their imaginations as well and putting it into something visual.
CC: What kind of concerns did you have going into the first At Table: Cleveland Culinaria. Really, there were no guarantees these two creative worlds would yield exhibit-worthy results.
RB: Yeah, you’re right. It was a big grand experiment. The first time ended up being our most popular exhibition in our history. The feedback we got from the artists and chef alike was that they really loved the process and participating in this kind of a thing. That’s why we brought it back. And so there are always challenges because it’s a pretty freeform process and every chef is different. They all have to sort of come up with the way they’d work together. It’s not always easy to get artists all together in one room at the same time. So that’s always challenging, but they all managed to make it work. And every team is different. They may have had their different ways of working. Some more independently and some more as a group.
CC: Perhaps Heights Arts should up the ante by adding yet another artistic element, such as music, into At Table: Cleveland Culinaria?
RB: (laughs) You know it. We’re always looking for that. We’re multidisciplinary — music, art and poetry. We already have a series where we combine poetry and art that goes along with every group exhibition. So in that scenario, we have poets come and read on opening night and four weeks in, we have an evening where the artist speaks about their work and then the poet reads poetry based on something that inspired them from the exhibition. The trick is when you have music involved, you have to have somebody compose it and then people perform it. We just haven’t had the capacity to do that, but it’s definitely something we’d love to do in the future, absolutely.
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118