THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK
video project 1986-1991
by Paul Lamarre and Melissa P. Wolf (aka EIDIA)

For the first time we are making available the entire edited anthology of THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES which includes The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE. The 10-hour series consists of a box set of six, (VHS or DVD format) New York University was the first to acquire this important compilation.

"Eating is a bad habit."
—Quentin Crisp, from The Starving Artists' Cookbook Video Series.

"The Starving Artists' Cookbook (1991) by Paul and Melissa Eidia is a verité video and book project consisting of short segments documenting many artists cooking in their everyday contexts. What emerges from their work is the intensely social nature of what is at one level a set of actions applied to substance."
—Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium. Performance Research 4, 1 (1999): 1-30.

"Culled from 90 hours of videotaped interviews with over 150 artists from the East Village to the Turkish quarter of Cologne - the nine-hour edited version dishes up awesome indigestion."
—Judd Tully, Taxi Magazine 1991.

THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES 1986-90 is in five parts (approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes each) and exists as it was screened at Anthology Film Archives, New York City in 1989 and 2001. Included in this set is THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK, The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE 1991 (TRT: 103 minutes)—a selection of 25 artists from the entire compendium of 150 artists cooking in the U.S., Europe, and Russia. The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE has been screened in numerous venues around the world. [The limited-edition (500) hand-bound book, FOOD SEX ART, The Starving Artists' Cookbook with original artwork by each artist, was created in 1991 to accompany the video.]

FOOD SEX ART The Starving Artists' Cookbook (book) is in the collection of:
The Art Institute of Chicago,
Banff Art Center Library,
The Cleveland Institute of Art,
CAM, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston,
Harvard University Fogg Museum Library,
Illinois State University, Normal,
The Institute of Contemporary Art, London,
Michigan State University,
New York University Bobst Library,
The Museum of Fine Art, Houston,
The Museum of Modern Art,
The National Gallery, Washington D.C.,
The New Museum,
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Rutgers University,
San Antonio Art Institute,
Stedlelijk Museum of Modern Art,
Toledo Museum of Art,
University of California Los Angeles Art Library,
The Walker Art Center,
The Wexner Center for the Arts,
The Whitney Museum of Art,
Yale University Library, and many others.

We are two artists (Paul Lamarre and Melissa P. Wolf, aka EIDIA) who live in the East Village and have done so since 1984. We have documented and been involved in the Manhattan downtown art scene going back to the late 1970s. In fact documenting and participating in the downtown art community is a major part of our work. We have videotaped and photographed the art world around us on a continual bases beginning in the early 1980's when Paul took up residence at the Chelsea Hotel in 1983. (Our archive of personal photography exceeds 10,000 images.)

The intent of The STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK and VIDEO SERIES was to capture the end of an era—the artist's lifestyle as exemplified by what he/she cooked and ate. It was clear to us that there was a breakdown of the art community in New York with the privatization of the art world and the birth of the "art star"—we wanted to catch on tape the other side of this story. As artists ourselves we were in direct contact with a diverse group of artists which had connections going back to the fifties—that golden era of the New York art world. The main body of this work was completed (with book) in 1989/90 with the production of the ten hour video series screened at the Anthology Film Archives in April 1998 and February 2001. (Note: The STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES not only involved the recording of the New York downtown scene, but continued into the 90s with several trips to Europe and Russia.)

THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES is a compendium of 150 video recordings of artists cooking in the U.S., Europe, and Russia. While expounding on the artists' relationship between art and life, THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK is also a portrait series on the artist in society; and a video documentation of the socialeconomic condition of the arts community in downtown New York and internationally. Paul Lamarre and Melissa P. Wolf have traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg twice for this series, in 1992, and 1995 after receiving a Citizens Exchange Council/International ArtsLink Fellowship for Collaborative Projects in 1994. [These compelling recording (post-perestroika) have yet to be edited.] THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK also has received from Artists Space, an Individual Artists' Grant, 1989; from The Kitchen, a Media Bureau Grant, 1988; and from New York Foundation for the Arts, a Video Fellowship, 1987. THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO, The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE, was included in the Videonale, Bonner Kunstverein, Germany (1992).

Participants in THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK, The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE include: John Cage, the late, great avant-garde rebel who everyone expects to "make" mushrooms, instead and unexpectedly preparing macrobiotic soup while relating his daily routine; William Wegman, archetypal video artist, in his trademark deadpan style, "popping" vitamin C tablets; the painter Alan Shields demonstrating how he supplements his artist's income with food he hunts, gathers, and prepares in his home on Shelter Island; Louise Bourgeois, the internationally recognized sculptor, in her basement studio cutting oxtails on her band saw as part of the preparation of oxtail stew; and Noel Mapstead reenacting for the camera a time when he was forced by circumstance (no electricity or heat) to live and cook by his fireplace, creating such delicacies as "spaghetti and mayonnaise." [The 25 artists selected for The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE were: Peter Beard, Tony Bevan & Glenous Johnson, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Leo Castelli, Lisa Cieslik, Papo Colo, Tony Conrad, Quentin Crisp, Debby Davis, Ingrid Grudheber, Shelley Hirsch, Andrei Khlobystin, Ruth Kligman, Noel Oard Mapstead, Taylor Mead, Chris Newman, Robert Parker, John Sex, Alan Shields, Jim Turner, Bill Wegman, and Lawrence Wiener.]

The following is a list of the participating artists as screened at Anthology Film Archives in 1989 and 2001 constituting THE STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES.

Program 1:
Janet Fish, Paul Smith, Charles Parness, Buster Cleveland, Paula Collery, Leslie Lew, Bill Rice, Ira Schneider, Louise Bourgeois, David Oxtaby, Dante Leonelli, Lisa Cieslik, Barbara Rosenthal, Suzanne Anker, John Wujcik, Nick Micros, Salvador Rosillo, Keiko Bonk, Tom Rubnitz, Terri Faulk, Martha Diamond, Stephen C. Rueckert, Catherine Fredman, Lynda Benglis, Wolfgang Golla, Stephen Trunk.

Program 2:
Debby Davis, Gustavo Ojeda, Adam Füss, Mary Beth Edelson, Robert Stackhouse, David Sandlin, John Sex, Sandy Straus, Hapi Phace, Vickie Teague-Cooper, Gracie Mansion, Bernd Naber, Matthew Geller, Andrea Callard, Sophie Herxheimer, Marcia Grostein, Diane Brill, John Cage, Bonnie Sherk, Richard Hofmann, Kathleen Goncharov, Harold Vogl, Joan Waltemath, Endre Tót, Ingrid Griudheres, Howard Grant, Barry Schwabsky, Simon Biggs.

Program 3:
Tony Conrad, Chris Newman, Lawrence Weiner, Altoon Sultan, Chezerie Falone, Maria Vedder, Bettina Gruber, Taylor Mead, Arlene Schloss, Donald Lipski, Sur Rodney (Sur), Baldo Diodato, Christof Kohlhoefer, Shelley Hirsch, Golba, Betty Tompkins, Marcus Leatherdale, Barbara Hertel, Don Voisine, Hope Sandrow, Marilyn Minter, Diane Pernet, Experanza Jimenez Cortes, Noel Oard Mapstead, Susan Nakata, Robert Appleton, Satprakash, Maria Graxia Torri.

Program 4:
Kit-Yin Snyder, Robert Yucikas, Anson Seeno, Tom Warren, Shigeko Kubota, Bill Mutter, Hannah Wilke, Creighton Michael, Arman, Tony Bevan, Glenous Johnson, Rob Renoult, Diego Esposito, Maria Morganti, Dayton Wright, Luis Frangella, Russell Sharon, Paul Bob, Hunt Slonem, Peter Beard, Alan Moore, William Wegman, Bob Witz, Redy Story, Paul Zaloom, Quentin Crisp, Ruth Kligman, Al Hansen, Louis Ronzoni.

Program 5:
Willoughby Sharp, Lori Montana, Jeffrey Lew, Oliver Sanchez, Alan Shields, Jean Marie Offenbacher, Judy Negron, Iancu Sorell, Oliver Rish, Laura Levine, Lynn Forgach, Vijay Dhawan, John Epperson (Lipsinka), Egizio Panetti, Shelley Himmelstein, Mark Berger, Dan Froot, Bill Fulton, Les Levine, Sidney Perry, Papo Colo, Jorge Salazar, Jonas Mekas, Robert Parker, Natalie Tompkins, Alice Tapanek, Steven Maslin.

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PRICING AND HOW TO ORDER

FOOD SEX ART, The Starving Artists' Cookbook
The STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK, the HIGHLIGHTS TAPE
The STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES

(New York University was the first to acquire this important compilation.)

FOOD SEX ART, The Starving Artists' Cookbook
The original signed and numbered (500) 1st edition 165 pages, is drilled and hand-bound with 3 steel rings. It can be purchased for $285 (Plus $20 shipping and handling.) A small number of the original limited edition are still available.

The STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK, the HIGHLIGHTS TAPE
(TRT 103 minutes)
On VHS or DVD is intended for screenings within the institution only - $285 (Plus $20 shipping and handling.) Your purchase of the VHS or DVD includes in-house public performance rights for the purchasing institution. The university sale is for the life of the tape.

The STARVING ARTISTS' COOKBOOK VIDEO SERIES (TRT 10 hours)
includes The HIGHLIGHTS TAPE
On VHS or DVD the cost is $1,900 plus $35 shipping and handling.

WHEN YOU ORDER THE ENTIRE COMPILATION, (edited video series and book) the cost is: $2,100, plus $35 shipping and handling.

Prepayment is required for all orders. Checks are made payable to Eidia House. Your order will be shipped within two weeks from the time your check is received. Your purchase of the VHS or DVD includes in-house public performance rights for the purchasing institution.

To order please contact: Eidia House, Paul Lamarre 718 218 6748, eidiahouse@earthlink.net

© 2008 Eidia House