Paisajes Transformados

The three-starred chef presented the exhibition at a press conference alongside MuVIM Director Francisco Molina, curator Beatriz García, Gaby Borro of Estudio 2E+1L, council Vice President Maria Josep Amigó and Councillor for Culture and Museums Xavier Rius.

“Quique Dacosta: Paisajes Transformados” is a conceptual journey presenting the inner world and creative process developed by the chef to construct and define his cooking style, steeped in the essences and raw materials of the Mediterranean.

“We are at a critical point in my career, and this exhibition will help further an understanding of my expressive language,” noted Quique Dacosta with regard to this unprecedented show that pays tribute to his culinary concept.

For Quique Dacosta, “the perspective given to the exhibition is not purely gastronomic, but also fundamentally artistic. The most inspiring and conceptual essence of the dishes has been extracted and combined with their creative side. The restaurant’s edible works of art enter the museum as concepts to create a language that also involves other disciplines.”

The exhibition presents a carefully-curated combination of videos, photographs, set designs and reproductions of the most essential and iconic of the chef’s dishes, divided into five themes: “Landscapes of Outward Appearances”, “Spiral: The Argonaut’s Journey”, “Journeys Travelled”, “The Creative Kitchen-Studio: Scientific Landscapes” and “Landscapes of Innate Qualities”.

“Paisajes Transformados is one step further in the artistic expression of my work, fruit of the action of communicating this through my own language, transcending the natural space I was born in for the kitchen and the table,” explained the protagonist of the exhibition and Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts of the Miguel Hernández University.

MuVIM Director Francisco Molina believes that “Quique is an impressionist, like Monet or Degas, who crafts his dishes as though they were paintings. He is transforming the landscape to capture it in his creations and convert these into works of art. This is the essence of the exhibition.”

The idea took shape two years ago at QB Architects and has been developed in collaboration with Estudio 2E+1L. Quique Dacosta personally supervised the whole development and process of setting it up.

According to the curator, “approaching the world of a creator is always a complex operation and becomes a game of approximate knowledge, a journey that we have experienced as a spiral around Quique Dacosta.”

“I feel the strong embrace of those who have been involved in the exhibition and who, with their art and knowledge, have sat down at the table in my kitchen to give breadth to my work and unite it with other artistic expressions,” declared the cook.

The chef, Extremaduran by birth and Valencian by adoption, has turned Quique Dacosta Restaurante, with three Michelin stars and a place on Restaurant magazine’s prestigious list of “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants”, into an international symbol of haute cuisine. In addition, he is the only chef in the Valencian Community to have three Michelin stars.

He also owns the restaurants El Poblet (1*), Vuelve Carolina and Mercatbar in Valencia. He recently published his third book, “3: Quique Dacosta” and is immersed in the 2015 season, Estados de Ánimo (Moods) at his restaurant in Denia.