Our monthly art series demystifies the artworks we love—or love to hate. This time we tackle a piece that might be mistaken for a restaurant
In 1990, visitors to the Paula Allen gallery in New York expecting paintings, sculptures, films and installations instead found artist Rirkrit Tiravanija cooking and serving pad Thai from a small cooking station—that was the artwork.
Tiravanija’s Untitled (Pad Thai) was conceived around the same time as a 90s’ art movement known as “relational aesthetics” came into being. The movement required audience interaction to be a part of the artwork, which forged a connection between the artist and viewer, and made the work more than just an object to be viewed. With his work, Tiravanija challenged the established ideas about what art was and how it was valued. His work initially critiqued the art world’s capitalist tendencies and the monetary value placed on art and physical objects, which is a criticism shared by the relational aesthetics movement.
At the same time, he also critiqued the post-colonial practice of museums in the west taking and exhibiting objects from other cultures outside of their accurate context. To counter the opaque art world’s exclusivity, he championed a genuine engagement between his artwork and the audience, by making it intrinsically inclusive through the communal engagement that comes from the shared experience of participation, especially sharing a meal together.
While Tiravanija was influenced by many artworks, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917)—a urinal—and Kazimir Malevich’s White on White (1918)—a white square on another white square—were crucial to changing his notion of what art could be. In Untitled (Pad Thai), Tiravanija exemplifies Duchamp’s principle that art can be whatever the artist says is art—in the process creating a seminal piece in his oeuvre that set the foundation for his subsequent works.
For the follow-up to his Paula Allen debut, Tiravanija presented a similar exhibition at 303 Gallery in New York, named untitled (free) in 1993, but instead of pad Thai, he cooked and served viewers curry and rice.
