Creative Ecology: Mauro Colagreco and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy

0:28Welcome to Chanel Connects.

0:37I'm Matthew Lutz-Kinoy. I'm a visual artist working across many disciplines. I'm working in painting, ceramics, performance, and collaborating a lot with people in all those disciplines. And, well, I'm happy to meet you because I think we share a lot of interest in terms of working with others and also an interest in the ecology of our work and the practices we put into place for a healthy environment. Well, pleasure to meet you. I'm Mauro Colagreco. I'm a chef. I work near the nature practically from the beginning of the creation of my restaurant. I have the lucky to work with fantastic people inside of the restaurant, a very cosmopolitan team.

1:33But as well, as you say, we have plenty of things in common because we collaborate with people who are artisans. Your work touched me a lot because I love ceramics. And what is the beautiful of the ceramic is you can feel the people behind the ceramics. You can feel the expression of the hands, the expression of the control, the temperature of cooking. In our restaurant is huge, the quantity of different ceramics we have. So I hope one day you have one of you or yours. I'm curious to see who you're working with and what all those things are. I don't know, I have a friend who is a fisherman, and he said, like, if you have this pole, you know, you can be friends with anyone in the whole world because you go everywhere and you can fish everywhere.

2:31And you can find your community and your beauty and your place and your food. When he told me that story, I thought, this is the same with ceramics. This is something that can take you to every place of the world. And in those places, you can find a common ground. No, but for sure. And it's something very common with cooking as well, because cooking is something where all the cultures do. I was in some place where I didn't talk any words of the native language. And when the food arrived, everybody understood each other, no? With the signs, with the smiles, with the energy, that actually is one of the things who I love the most in my profession is this possibility of huge palettes of people you meet.

3:30And then with the people who we cook for them, you know, we have this connection who is an act of love practically for me. So that is what I love the most in my profession. And I think it's the same with what you do. Yeah, I'm always curious about that, actually. Well, this is something interesting that I wanted to talk to you about, this idea of the stage. And it's something that I was really curious to know more about. Because for me, when I started my work in experimental theater and was producing my paintings as backdrops, They were like large format backdrops. And I would fold them up and put them in the back of a taxi, show up at a nightclub, stretch them in the nightclub, organize a dance, and then, okay, time's up, and then everything collapsed down and go home.

4:26And I was working with musicians like Sophie and other artists like Chelsea Colprit. We were working in nightclubs curated by Hendrik Fulkertz and in museum auditoriums with Lauren Cornell. And this type of temporal space was so interesting to me. And then when the pottery began in my work and it started with my collaborator, a friend of mine named Natsuko Ucino, and we worked together. doing ceramics and the plate like became this stage like it became this platform and I realized like okay you can have like it can also because it's like expanding it's a multiple so like it's something that kind of expand and contract you have like a stack of plates you kind of spread it out you create this kind of platform and then it kind of collapses again but what you say about this movement between the plates is the movement for me as well in what happened in a table.

5:35Yeah, exactly. The stage in the table, no? And the room, we open the plates and the party happens. Yeah. No, the people are happy. it's crazy how in a restaurant that can happen twice a day when i've organized dinner events and things like that it's like i make it you know like i do it so i do it rarely you know so it's always like a big effort like i make all the ceramics i have to find the chef i have to find the people to work with i make the paintings all this stuff and the last one i did in london we did like actually i was very amazed because here in la pausa you have these ceramics laying around the house.

6:17This is a specific type of ceramic that I was researching going between England and Japan and that started as a dialogue with the Mingi movement. And when I saw those plates here in the house, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so crazy. So the last project I did with those ceramics, we worked in London. We produced everything in London. We researched historical British techniques of decoration and play production. And then we worked with British food and British chefs from this restaurant Café Deco and so we worked with them to create the menu and create the evening and so but what I meant to say is that each time is kind of it's almost like I make this script you know to kind of construct this kind of event or a thing that's kind of centered but like in your case it's so continuous do you think like okay this season I'm going to focus on this subject once a year we make a program for the year.

7:15And what's the starting point of the program? Like, how do you say, okay, this is the thing that, like, informs everything? Well, it can be different things. For example, many years ago, I wanted to dip in the seaweed universe. So we started to develop and research and working on totally different kind of use of seaweed from the starters, mains, desserts, flavors, textures, cook, raw. So it was super interesting. As always I say, in a menu, if you have all the dish, it's like the music. If you have all the same tone, it's boring. But you need this high and low in a menu, because that gives to the guests this emotion, you know?

8:31Okay, because you use this word a lot. You talk about like emotions. I always feel I'm kind of conscious of the construction of space, you know? Like the restaurant is a constructed space. You create a kind of space of experience. And so inside of this controlled environment, you know, you are playing games, you know? You're playing with the audience, you're playing with their feelings, you're playing with their perception. But inherently, you are dealing towards a kind of politic of ecology. You discuss biodiversity, extinction. And so this conversation is deeply prescient and political. You must come to me, Dester, because it's totally what we try to do.

9:19and I'm totally convinced we can change the world to the good or to the bad depending on what we decide in the future or what we will eat. And we need to decide now. It's not in the future, it's now. It's practically even too late. But it's crazy how the nature changes, no? Fast and becomes life. And so it's, but it's for sure a political action and it's what we try is to express our, of course it's a moment of joy, you know, must to be a moment of joy when you go to the restaurant. But I need this moment of practically cries in the experience, not the shock in the experience. And I look always for this little shock to provoke the guests in something more deeper, more out of the box of the wall of the restaurant.

10:32Yeah. And we have two phases because we are as well producers, we are farmers. I say always, I make the comparison between la mode, you dress your body for external and I dress your body inside. It's what you say, no? It's very, very powerful. How you can dress with the amazing dressing is very important for me, this aspect of confidence to put something in your body, you know? Oh, like you have to make this safe space for them. Yes, yes. Definitely. For me, I think about this, maybe you think about that with food, is like the hybridity and the possible kind of hybridity and philosophies about human interaction.

11:31Of course. And it's what happened with me in Mirazur when I'm Argentinian born, training in France, moved to Menton when I was 28, in a place where I never be before. When I arrived, I didn't know the seasons here, the products, the producers. So it was for me like a star from a white page, totally free. Even the border between Italy and France, for me, it wasn't a border. It was an opportunity. It was a place of richness, of fusion. And the more I was involved in this vision and the more I understood the opportunity and the liberty I was lucky to live, the more I understood the way of the creation and the tradition and the evolution of the tradition.

12:43And this mix of cultures, this immigration, this contamination is part of the, from the beginning of the history of the humans. And to be part of that, of this evolution, is continuous evolution. Yeah. Even as a farmer, I studied that, you know, the mille, who is milo in... The wheat and the flour. Yes. They're moving because the movement of population thousands of years ago because the climate changed already. Yeah. So today in my garden, I will allow you visit, you can find between the very classic Mediterranean vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, olives, you will find bananas, papayas, passion fruits.

13:49Because it can grow now. It can grow now, no? It can grow with the climate change. And I find this evolution super interesting. And it's why I believe we will reach something more interesting in the future. I totally believe in the capacity of the humans to adapt himself, to survive, and to be more performant. Yeah, I agree. Like when I was preparing for our conversation, I was thinking of this idea of aesthetic experiences or constructed space. I thought about, which is like, I was, and I hadn't asked myself this question in a while. So I was kind of happy to ask myself this question, which was, okay, so today, and it's always changing.

14:45So I thought today you're going on this trip, you know, we're in a kind of crazy time right now in the world, lots of uncertainty, lots of violence. So, Matthew, how do you define beauty? And I thought, hmm, maybe today I would define beauty as seeing the world clearly. Or maybe what I could kind of describe as what beauty is, which doesn't only include pleasure, but also includes reality. For me, I push myself always to see the beauty. Even more in these days, in those days, because we need to have Iceland of hope. And we need to build these islands of hope in every individual person. Even in the worst situations, we must keep in mind something beautiful around us happens.

15:52And in your work every day, you have somebody who inspires you? Yeah, I think that there's definitely two parallels, you know, because I have to say that I'm probably the most influenced by the people I work directly with. I would like be lost in this world if I had don't think of all of the important collaborators that I've had from my first band working with Sophie to like the dancers I've worked with and choreographers like Isabel Lewis. And so I think that there's this, which is extremely important. All of the kind of living people who touch us and we touch back to make our work in the world, which I think are ultimately the most influential.

16:51Yes. I mean, when I was developing my ceramic project, we talked about like you mentioned like Picasso, but actually the starting point of my ceramic project was Judy Chicago, a feminist artist who's alive today, who created one of the most impressive sculptures that I had seen as a child growing up at the Brooklyn Museum called The Dinner Party, which is a giant table dedicated to real and historical feminist figures. And each table setting is dedicated to a woman. And there's a table placing with text. I think that's also part of my interdisciplinary approach, is that always kind of creating balances to things.

17:35So there's always this kind of interest in, I think, historically finding a sort of merge. But me personally, most of my inspirations have been female figures, I think, in the arts, because they tend to work more collaboratively and work more collectively. Yes, the ego probably is less dominant. Yes. I recently got to exhibit with the drawings of Trisha Brown. So I got to place one of my large format works in the same space with her drawings, which are made as performances. and they're actually kind of scores. The drawing itself is a sort of trace of movement and a score. So hard to say. I mean, there's so many important influences, but I think a lot of my core interest comes from, yeah, maybe feminist movement, I would say.

18:32So nice. And I understand totally your point. point and for me as well, the people who you work with mark a lot your career and I think about all these very cosmopolitan team who I have, some of them with me for more than 15 years they change my way to think as well. In the kitchen you learn constantly But then it was as well women's. I was Beatrice Chomnales, who is still a great cooker in Argentina, who from my early age, she take care of me and she bring me here in France to learn French cuisine. But again, it's not only chef as well. You know, somebody who marked me a lot is Masona Bufuoco, who was a farmer, a Japanese farmer, who writes a few books.

19:47One of his books changed totally my vision about agriculture, but about as well the impact of the food in every step of our life. in nature, but as well in the society who we live. When I was listening to an interview with you, I thought of this chapter in The One Straw Revolution where he talks about the rice field. And there's this story in the book. He tells the story of the ecology of the landscape, but he talks about it because it starts with waking up one morning and the entire field is covered in spider webs. And then he talks about, but if you're going to have the spiderwebs, then you need also then the snails and you need these other insects.

20:37And like, if you're going to be an expert on rice, maybe you also need to be an expert on snails and spiders. and then we don't only need this but we need the artists to represent because it's so beautiful when you see the whole field covered in spider webs who can capture this so we need to get artists involved yes yes in this chapter i thought of this when you yeah it's so beautiful yeah and i thought of this when you were sort of describing your relationship to your garden and your farming and well no it's super interesting we can stay for hours I think, to talk. I just want to introduce my universe to you, to have the opportunity to show you what we do.

21:26I think you have plenty of common things. My work opens a door, not a door, millions of doors of hope, of possibilities, and it depends on us to keep these doors open and to continue to open more, no? That's beautiful that you say it like that because I also was thinking, you know, the way that I like to work also as an artist in the way I engage with people is to open as many doors as possible, not only in terms of like an idea or a project, but also as like points of access and points of engagement, you know, to keep the things open so that people can enter. Yes, yes, super important. Thank you.

22:15Real pleasure.

22:19This is Chanel Connects, available to listen on Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Podcasts. Next time, I sit down with artist and innovator Adam Pendleton.