What Is Spirit Cooking?

Marina Abramović Spirit Cooking 1996

Spirit Cooking was the first project Jacob Samuel produced with his portable aquatint box, working with Abramović—a performance artist with little printmaking experience—in her Amsterdam studio. The artist chose to make a cookbook,writing a series of "aphrodisiac recipes" that serve as evocative instructions for actions or thoughts. To allow the artist to create the accompanying etchings in a manner consistent with her body-oriented practice, Samuel prepared the plates with soft ground so she could scratch directly onto the surface with her fingernails and encouraged her to work with spitbite, using her own saliva with nitric acid to paint on the plate.

Gallery label from Print/Out, February 19–May 14, 2012.

Medium: Portfolio of eight etchings (four with aquatint and one with gold leaf) and four aquatints with chine collé; and 25 letterpress prints
Dimensions: plate: see child records; sheet (each): 12 3/8 x 10 15/16" (31.5 x 27.8 cm)
Publisher: Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica
Printer: Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica
Edition: 21
Credit: Monroe Wheeler Fund
Object number: 76.2011.1-38
Copyright: © 2021 Marina Abramovic / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Type: Portfolio
Department: Drawings and Prints

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