'Tselementes' - artist's cookbook
TBM project- in progress, Eleni Chamou, 2014-now
For my art project, based on the exhibition's topic "Lusting exposure", I created a cookbook, which also could be seen as a restaurant's catalogue. The color of the Cover is a reference to the first Greek Cookbook called 'Tselementes'. Tselementes was a Greek chef of the early 20th century. He is considered one of the most influential cookery writers of modern Greece. In my book, I present my personal opinion about different periods and artists, with basic elements, lust and exposure. Then based on the recipes, I want to create sculpture dishes. I worked with more than a dozen projects this summer, cooking like a summertime madman and considering ART beautiful element of my life. I read many articles about Surrealism, something that influenced the majority of my projects. Cooking process made me feel calm in a crazy spring. A dream was probably the beginning for the idea of this cookbook. I imagined myself cooking everywhere in the World. I made beautiful meals and terrible ones, found myself well instructed, poorly instructed, often overprotected, sometimes lied to, but always amused. Cookbooks aren't really about cooking, and haven't been since the start of color photography. They're mostly lifestyle catalogs, a prepared manual with instructions for lives we'd like to live. I think that images force us to cook, which is relating with the process of making art, in my personal perspective.