Marina Abramović. Untitled from Spirit Cooking. 1996
Marina Abramović (Yugoslav, born 1946). Untitled from Spirit Cooking. 1996. Letterpress from a portfolio of of eight etchings (four with aquatint and one with gold leaf) and four aquatints with chine collé; and 25 letterpress prints, each 12 3/8 x 10 15/16” (31.5 x 27.8 cm). Publisher and printer: Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica. Edition: 21. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Monroe Wheeler Fund, 2011. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Spirit Cooking was the first project Jacob Samuel produced with his portable aquatint box, working with Abramović—a performance artist with little printmaking experience—in her Amsterdam studio. The artist chose to make a cookbook, writing a series of “aphrodisiac recipes” that serve as evocative instructions for actions or thoughts. To create the accompanying etchings in a manner consistent with her body-oriented practice, Samuel prepared the plates with soft ground, allowing the artist to scratch directly onto the surface with her fingernails, and encouraged her to work with spit-bite, using her own saliva mixed with nitric acid to paint on the plate.
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