From Studio to Dining Table: Dorothy Iannone

Alice Waters, chef and co-founder of the famous Cali­fornian slow food restau­rant Chez Panisse, summed up the close connec­tion between art and cooking: “...​they are both reac­tive and creative, imitating and adapting to each other.” So is there a connec­tion between what happens in the studios of artists and what happens in their kitchens? Are there refer­ences to their work and person­ality? Are artists partic­u­larly creative when it comes to the everyday act of cooking? With the help of anec­dotes and photos about their kitchens and eating habits, we provide insights into the culi­nary worlds of well-known artists.

In 1968 and at the age of 35, Dorothy Iannone began to write down her favorite meals and their recipes. When she had finished one year later the whole thing had grown into a book with over 60 pages and 200 dishes that she called “A Cookbook”. However, Iannone is not a cook, but rather an artist, and her book is not an ordinary cookbook either. For example, if you look up how to make gnocchi – featured on page 8 – you see alongside the recipe written neatly on a red and white background the drawing of a naked woman in yellow whose sex, not unlike a gnocco, is in the list of ingredients for Mussels with Tomato Sauce. “Just 3 bottles of wine can really loosen my tongue,” is written on her face, “Sometimes I have so many different pains, I become assured there can be nothing wrong with me,” you read at navel height. This juxtaposition of pragmatic cooking instructions and personal, often humorous, ironic reflections surrounded by floral and abstract ornament runs through the entire book. “A Cookbook” is a collection of recipes, a diary and a sketchbook, crammed with references to Iannone’s life and creative work.

Based on a four-course meal, selected to suit the artist’s own taste we undertake a short journey involving the most important steps in her career. All the recipes are from “A Cookbook” and are true to the originals.

Appetizers

Born in 1933 in Boston, Massachusetts, she grew up in an Italo-American household spanning several generations – her grandparents were immigrants from Calabria – and Dorothy Iannone thus came into contact with Italian cuisine at an early age. “I think maybe I like Italian food best of all. Is that bad?” she asks at the end of the book where the instructions for how to make “Cannelloni”, “Ravioli Bardelli”, “Stuffed Tufoli” and “Fettucine Alfredo” are given. Logically enough she includes dozens of classic South Italian dishes in her collection including this stuffed escarole salad alongside which she writes the words “very super”:

Starters

Initially Iannone studied American Literature and only became interested in art as an autodidact after she married artist James Upham in 1958 and moved with him to New York. Her first artistic works are images and collages in the Abstract Expressionist mold but then the couple travels extensively to Europe and Asia and her work becomes increasingly more figurative. Iannone integrated elements of Indian temple art, Japanese woodblock prints, Greek vases and Byzantine mosaic work into her compositions. The early works also include the first human figures with prominent sexual organs that become a signature feature of her later oeuvre. Thematically, the artist becomes more and more interested in the central issue of exploring sensuality and love. During a longer stay in Southern France Iannone developed close friendships to artists from the Fluxus movement and from a culinary perspective this stay also leaves it mark: While only a handful of dishes including pilau, tempura and Peking Duck recall her trips to Asia, the French cuisine takes up a lot of space in Iannone’s artist cookbook. Under the letter “C” alone you find “Cassoulet”, “Coq au Vin”, “Croûtes”, “Chicken Liver Canapé” and the following classic, luxurious dish that symbolizes Iannone’s cosmopolitan lifestyle with the wealthy Upham:

Main course

1967 marked a key moment in Iannone’s biography: During a trip to Iceland, she got to know German-Swiss Concept artist Dieter Roth, fell in love and within the space of only a week abandoned her old life. Her relationship to Roth also marks the start of a new creative phase in the artist’s life characterized by her addressing the concept of “ecstatic unity" that she sees in the sexual merging of man and woman. Her own erotic experiences with Roth serve as the subject; to him she ascribes the dual role of lover and artistic muse. In the numerous artist books, sculptures, drawings and objects that Iannone produced in subsequent years she celebrates and draws a portrait of female sexuality in all its facets in a humorous, open manner. She develops a striking narrative style based on the interplay of images and words.

Though her move to Europe was a hasty one, Iannone was wise enough to not only take some of her artworks with her but also her cookbooks and spices. And indeed “A Cookbook” comes about out of Iannone’s motivation despite the many moves with Roth – they live during their seven-year relationship variously in Reykjavik, London, Basel and Düsseldorf – to create a sense of home by cooking her favorite dishes. When Iannone first sees her future partner in Reykjavik harbor he is holding a fresh fish in his hand wrapped in newspaper. Fittingly, the cookbook has a simple fish recipe that has Dieter’s name in its title and relies on mustard “Düsseldorfer Senf” to give it flavor – a classic dish from the regional capital where Iannone and Roth spend a lot of time together.

Desert

Iannone’s work fell prey to censorship on several occasions throughout her career owing to her representation of explicitly erotic situations. And she also experienced rejection on the part of members of the women’s movement in the 1970s as her understanding of free love as the complete mutual surrender of man and woman was not considered emancipated. However, she was not deterred at all by such sentiments. After she and Roth Split up in1974 Iannone received an artist scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Council and moved to Berlin. However, it was not until several years later that the art institutions express their explicit praise of her work: In 2009, when she was almost 80 years old, the New Museum in New York dedicated a solo exhibition to her works, and in 2014 Berlinische Galerie followed suit. Today, Iannone continues to work from the studio of her Berlin apartment on the next chapters of her artistic narration while she has meanwhile relocated “ecstatic unity” to her own inner self.

Dorothy Iannone has always celebrated the acting out of lust and sensuality, and it is therefore fitting that the crowning glory of the meal is an uncompromising sweet biscuit desert from Italy with crème de cacao, whipped cream, strawberries, vanilla and rum.