Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity begins an international tour at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, OH, September 26, 2014 - January 18, 2015 followed by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 28 - August 2, 2015; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN, Sept 17, 2015 - January 3, 2016; and Marres House for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 20 - June 12, 2016. This exhibition was on view at The Drawing Center January 25 - February 28, 2014

Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity is the first major museum exhibition to focus on the visualization and drawing practices of master chef Ferran Adrià. The exhibition emphasizes the role of drawing in Adrià’s quest to understand creativity. His complex body of work positions the medium as both a philosophical tool—used to organize and convey knowledge, meaning, and signification-—as well as a physical object—used to synthesize over twenty years of innovation in the kitchen. As one of the most important avant-garde chefs of the twenty-first century, Adrià pushes culinary boundaries with both knowledge and wit, transforming the art of cooking into an art of food. Hundreds of notebooks have been filled with concepts, ideas, collaged photographs, and loose sketches for new dishes for elBulli. More straightforward creative methods in the form of lists, tables of ingredients, and cooking methods have also been used to synthesize ingredients and conceptualize new ways of cooking. The use of drawing to articulate cuisine as both a product and a concept is indicative of a creative model that is always in flux. Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity charts the origins of this innovator’s intellectual and philosophical ideas about gastronomy that have forever changed how we understand food.

Curated by Brett Littman.

Dom Pérignon is the presenting partner of Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity.

Additional support is provided by the Institut Ramon Llull, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), and Lavazza.

Special thanks to The James New York.

PRESS
The New York Times review
"If his cooking is close to art, then Mr. Adrià is close enough to being an artist to merit the exuberant, engrossing overview of the graphic side of his work at the Drawing Center."

''Several drawings bring to mind the lists and diagrams frequent to early Conceptual Art. And three elaborate charts enlarged and transferred to walls map the creative, culinary and gastronomical process with the inspirational verve of a Joseph Beuys blackboard.

In contrast, for “Theory of Culinary Evolution,” Mr. Adrià uses crayon, paint stick and colored pencil on typing-paper-size sheets to trace the evolution of food from the Big Bang, through the discovery of fire and forward, in 58 colorful, childlike drawings that bring to mind aspects of the work of Joan Snyder and Cy Twombly.''

- Roberta Smith, The New York Times

CATALOGUE
Read Drawing Papers 110: Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity.
Buy the catalogue.

Image: Ferran Adrià, Plating Diagram. Ink on paper, 11x17 inches, Courtesy of elBullifoundation.