With Hardcore Diner, Austrian artist Paul Renner will host a restaurant that temporarily finds a home at Leo Koenig Inc. in Chelsea. From May 6-11, 2006, a small group of people will be dining and drinking in lavish and extravagant surroundings. The centerpiece of this series of events will be a 65 foot long dinner table built out of used materials, with a coat of asphalt that is gold-leafed. The gallery will be completely transformed into a compression chamber with its walls clad in seaweed. On six successive nights, a multiple-course dinner will be served for 40 guests, prepared by a team of chefs with outstanding expertise. For Hardcore Diner there will be a reunion of the same chefs who brought The Hellfire Touring Club to Kunsthalle Wien's project space. The Hellfire Touring & Dining Club was founded by Paul Renner and Medlar Lucan & Durian Gray, authors of The Decadent Cookbook/Traveler/Gardner in 2004.
Gastrointestinalatlas/A Journey to the Interior will lead off this six-day event on the evening of May 6th.
The following night of May 7th, a speech by Gerald Matt, Director of the Kunsthalle Wien will introduce the theme of the night, Impossible Bodies/ Hermaphrodites & Stuffed Figures. Dinner guests will be served bizarre-looking bodies of different shapes and forms, stuffed with delicacies and specialties.
With Fertile Fat Breasts/Abundance and Excess on May 8th, the artist will create a feast of abundance and opulence. Burlesque Strip by Miss Ruby Valentine on a trash pile from Will Cotton.
Tuesday, May 9th will be marked by In Cold Blood, where the menu will fulfill impromptu orders by the individual guests, referring to the traditional last meal that one is served before being executed. The dinner will be accompanied by Columbian singer, Lucia Pulido.
For The Golden Ass/Transformation & Alchemy, on May 10th, all dishes will be transformed by a coat of gold leaf and consumed with rare alcoholic distillates. Reading by Brian Waniewski out of the golden ass from Apuleius.
Rounding off our culinary adventure will be the grand closing party Decayed Gotham Honey/Perfume & Disinfectant, with a special screening of kunst/essen a film on the artist Paul Renner, directed by Alex. Hesse. DJ will be Debora Warner.