MoMA PS1 Salad Garden

Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”

Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad,” August 18th, 2014, MoMA PS1 Salad Garden

 

  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”
  • Alison Knowles, “Make A Salad”

NOTES

This salad can be made for two, or for two thousand; it is more of an event score, than a recipe. We used almost all the herbs available in the MoMA PS1 Salad Garden. I have been loving these willy-nilly combinations, each bite is a little different than the last. You can make these herbaceous salads using any and all fresh herbs (I would avoid rosemary, summer savory and lovage). Choose your own adventure.

INSTRUCTIONS

If serving a large group, unfold your clean tarp on the ground in front of a 6′ folding table. Have your large mixing bowls handy, and begin to chop each ingredient, announcing the ingredient into the microphone as you work. The more diverse the ingredients, the more fun the listing will be.

As you chop, fill the bowls with your cut vegetables, and periodically dump them out over the edge of the table and onto the tarp. Feel free to vary the rhythm of your chopping for dramatic effect.

Once all your vegetables are cut and on the tarp, combine ingredients for the dressing in a large jar and slowly pour over the salad. Using a large garden rake, mix the salad with the dressing until well combined. Season generously with salt and pepper, and serve.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

EASY

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PREP TIME

60 MINS

Salad

  • 5 
    heads 
    red leaf lettuce
  • 2 
    cups 
    bronze fennel fronds
  • 3 
    cups 
    shiso leaves
  • 3 
    cups 
    salad burnet, stems removed
  • 3 
    cups 
    radishes
  • 1 
    cup 
    pea shoots
  • 1 
    cup  
    purslane
  • 1 
    cup 
    agretti,stems removed
  • 1 
    cup 
    basil leaves
  • 1 
    6'x12' 
    Plastic tarp
  • 1 
    handful 
    minutina
  • 3 
     
    green zebra tomatoes
  • 3 - 4 
     
    marigold flowers, petals only
  • 3 
     
    sets of salad tongs
  • 12 
     
    persian cucumbers
  • 12 
     
    heirloom carrots
  • 1 
     
    garden rake
  • 3 
     
    large bowls
  • 3 
     
    cutting boards
  • 3 
     
    knives
  • 2 
     
    microphones
  • 1 
     
    P.A. System

Dressing

  • 3 
    tbs 
    Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 
    cup 
    maple syrup
  • 1/2 
    cup 
    red wine or cider vinegar
  • 1 1/2 
    cups 
    olive oil
  •  
     
    sea salt
  •  
     
    cracked black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

If serving a large group, unfold your clean tarp on the ground in front of a 6′ folding table. Have your large mixing bowls handy, and begin to chop each ingredient, announcing the ingredient into the microphone as you work. The more diverse the ingredients, the more fun the listing will be.

As you chop, fill the bowls with your cut vegetables, and periodically dump them out over the edge of the table and onto the tarp. Feel free to vary the rhythm of your chopping for dramatic effect.

Once all your vegetables are cut and on the tarp, combine ingredients for the dressing in a large jar and slowly pour over the salad. Using a large garden rake, mix the salad with the dressing until well combined. Season generously with salt and pepper, and serve.

The MoMA PS1 Salad Garden project would not have been complete without the inclusion of Alison Knowles, the original Salad Artist. Alison is a Fluxus artist, having made her mark on the world with her textual event scores — simple propositions that suggest you, Make A Salad, Make A Soup, or eat an Identical Lunch, in the name of art. These imperatives can manifest in your imagination alone, or they can be enacted, anytime, anyplace, by anyone. Alison has built a career around her work with salad, beans and shoes as her media, and I can’t think of anything more inspiring. I draw from her work, and use it as a touchstone — an example of the importance of participation, the accessibility of conceptual art, and the rituals of the everyday action.

Last June, I tracked Alison down and I proposed that she contribute to the blog by enacting her seminal 1962 event score, Make A Salad, in the MoMA PS1 Salad Garden. This score was first performed in 1962 at the ICA in London, and Alison has performed it 3 times since, on one occasion to an audience of a couple thousand at least. When I extended the invitation to perform this on a far more intimate scale, Alison declined, due to her busy travel schedule, but invited me to enact the score myself. “But Alison,” I said, “I have been enacting the score, nearly on a daily basis, inviting friends and strangers alike to partake in the ceremony of salad. But, the project won’t be complete unless you yourself, make an appearance.” In response, Alison invited me to her loft (a place on Spring street that is frozen in time, where she has lived for 50 years). There, she so generously presented me with each work of art that she has thoughtfully pinned to her wall — personal notes from John Cage (her close friend and collaborator), her collection of beans and printed editions (when Alison is not making salad, she is most often working with beans). We talked about plants, books, salad and our shared love of mushroom hunting. After an exhaustive show and tell, she mulled about the room, asking, “What else can I show you…”That same afternoon, we set a date to perform Make A Salad at MoMA PS1, and the event took place on August 18th.

Alison chose her performers, each accomplished artists in their own right: David Teeple, Jessica Higgins, and Mark Bloch who provided an improvisational percussive element to the piece. Each time that this score is performed, the curator is asked to make crucial decisions about what materials to use, where and how the performance will play out, and how many people will attend. After all, the original 1962 score simply says, “Make A Salad.” Nothing more, nothing less.  When Alison and her team arrived, we toured the garden, tasting everything and harvesting our materials for the day (making sure to spend extra time with my rainbow colored Reverend Taylor Butterbeans). Whereas the ingredients for these Fluxus salads have previously come from the grocery store, our vegetables would be grown on-site, an element that Alison marveled at as she called out the ingredients while chopping for her audience, “Thai Pink Egg Tomato, Bronze Fennel, Saltwort, Salad Burnet…” Unsuspecting museum visitors and a select group of fellow artists and friends were invited to watch, and eventually, to eat. Alison insists that waste not be a result of the project, so the audience was urged, maybe even peer-pressured, by the Grand Dame herself, into going back for seconds. It was one of the few performances I have experienced in my life, that undoubtedly, left its audience duly sated.

My interview with Alison is forthcoming in Lucky Peach magazine. Stay tuned!