Hardcore Diner at Leo Koenig - Artist-Chef Paul Renner's Gastronomic Take On Decadence -- New York Magazine

Let Them Eat . . . Um, What?

Artist-chef Paul Renner, caught between his painting and some of his dinner-art.

(Photo: Hans Gissinger)

The New York event is no less lavish. At Koenig’s gallery, the tables, which seat 40, are Renner sculptures, built up from layers of black asphalt, gold leaf, and seashells. The candelabra are fashioned from dried herring dipped in bronze. The chandelier is based on Duchamp’s Readymade Egouttoir. (Renner’s version uses empty longnecks.) In the corner is a baby grand filled with ice, keeping the champagne chilled. During the course of the evening, the ice is meant to melt through the piano strings and flood the gallery. But perhaps the most over-the-top detail is the seaweed-covered walls. Four hundred pounds of dried nori can have an oddly gothic effect. “I emptied Chinatown,” Renner says. “The shopkeepers all know me now—when I come by, they wave me away.”

In some ways, Renner’s “decadence” could be taken as a double-dig: at luxe restaurateuring but also at the raw-food faddists and health nuts who forsake his mode of cooking—rather heavy on the fats, sugars, and spirits. Koenig, however, disagrees: “It isn’t about food. The food is just a vehicle to get people to interact.” Amid all the extravagance, “there’s a sincerity there, which is sometimes missing in New York. You become a part of it. The guests make the work complete. That’s the art.”