At the elegant “Park Avenue Winter”, artist Aneta Stojnic orders the “Vulkano Flambé” - a 
dessert especially created by Marina Abramovic, as a whiter season specialty on a menu of 
this restaurant. However, she does not consume it by eating it. She places herself across 
the table from the dessert and sits silently, focused, concentrated, looking at the dessert 
for a long while. After about an hour she finally gets up and walks away.
 
(historical) reference no.1
Marina Abramović performance “The Artist is Present” at MoMa, March-May 2010

„A pioneer of performance art, Marina Abramović (born Yugoslavia, 1946) began using her

own body as the subject, object, and medium of her work in the early 1970s. For the

exhibition Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, The Museum of Modern Art’s first

performance retrospective, Abramović performed in the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron

Atrium every day the Museum was open between March 14 and May 31, 2010. Visitors were 

encouraged to sit silently across from the artist for a duration of their choosing, 

becoming participants in the artwork.“

Source: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/marinaabramovic/
(historical) reference no.2
Marina Abramovic collaboration with Manhattan restaurant “Park Avenue Winter” developing the 
exclusive dessert “Volcano Flambe”, January-March 2011

„The latest work of the performance artist Marina Abramovic , may be her most ephemeral.

It’s Volcano Flambé, a dessert prepared by Kevin Lasko, the chef at the seasonally

changing Park Avenue Winter. “You receive this dessert in front of you and it’s kind of

a mystery,” Ms. Abramovic said. Its core of dark chocolate ice cream is covered with

meringue, decorated with gold leaf and a swirl of spun sugar, bedded on chocolate cookie

crumbs and flambéed with rum. The artist’s booklet of off-beat recipes, “Spirit Cooking,”

and an MP3 player with a talk by her accompany the dessert. It’s one of several artist

collaborations the restaurant has organized with Creative Time, a nonprofit group.

Volcano Flambé is $20 through March 20 at Park Avenue Winter, 100 East 63rd Street,

(212) 644-1900.“

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/dining/12art.html?_r=1
Performance “The Desert is Present” critically cross-refers Marina Abramovic’s performance 
“The Artist is Present” and her “Volcano flambé” collaboration with Park Avenue Winter. 
I take those works/events as a starting point for questioning the very role, function and 
position of the artist and the art work in contemporary consumer society where trough media 
spectacle of culture industries art has become a mere commodity - hype, trend, brand… 
Replacing “the Artist” with “the Dessert”, I play with the problematic construction of 
artist-subject within the contemporary system of art.

 

more photos: Dessert is Pressent_Aneta Stojnic