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A brief history:

In 2006 I was asked by Sean Kelly (Marina Abramovic’s art dealer) if I was interested in creating a special cocktail for Marina Abramovic’s 60th birthday party at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.

Marina is an artist that I always had tremendous respect and admiration for.

I just had met her at Sean’s SoHo loft a month prior to that.

I said yes to the project, and Marina and I started working almost immediately by spending time together, and talking about her life past and present. It was my way to get to know her and decide upon my ingredients for this special cocktail that was suppose to represent her essence.

I decided on 10 ingredients each one of them representing a component of her life.

Ingredient number 10 was to be her own blood (Haima) which would have been dehydrated (a tiny amount) and included in the blend. In Marina’s work as a performance artist, blood is an essential element.

Prohibited by the museum of using her blood, instead in the end; I asked Marina to sleep on a handful of red pepper powder for a week (as a metaphor for her blood) so that it would absorb her aural energy, which then I mixed into the drink.

The art Project:

This project consists of 2 digital drawing approximately 13x19 inches, The first one (Haima 1) is based on a charcoal drawing that I did of Marina in a position of equilibrium “homeostasis” while I was working on the libation. I superimposed digitally the list of the complex aromatic ingredients and molecules associated with the cocktail.
The second a simpler version of an inventory of the ingredients.

P.S No exact recipe is given, just the list of ingredients and certain names associated with the creation of specific spirits. One has to follow the alchemical formula/ path, and try to decipher the recipe through the process of association.

 

Ektoras Binikos      2/25/11

Sometimes it's the intricate flavors in a cocktail. Sometimes it's the color. Sometimes it's the mood you're in when you raise the glass to your lips. And sometimes, the beauty of a beverage is about symbolism and ceremony. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, all these with The Marina Abramovic, a cocktail created by Ektoras Binikos for Marina Abramovic on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Who is Marina Abremovic? I didn't know either.

When something or someone new is brought to my attention, I delve into the subject matter. I Googled Marina Abramovic. The second of "about 584,000" hits (in a very impressive 0.35 seconds), yielded the following from www.eyestorm.com: "Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1946. Marina Abramovic is a performance artist who investigates and pushes the boundaries of physical and mental potential. In her performances she has lacerated herself, flagellated herself, frozen her body on blocks of ice, taken mind- and muscle-controlling drugs that have caused her to fall unconscious, and almost died from asphyxiation while lying within a curtain of oxygen-devouring flames." A girl after my own heart, I thought. She could have been a bartender in another universe.

And what about Ektoras Binikos? Many of you probably know that he's the acclaimed head bartender at New York's Aureole restaurant. His cocktail recipes have gained much deserved attention and Binikos is recognized as a cocktailian whiz. Did you know, though, that he is also an artist? His works--go to www.ektorasbinikos.com--have been displayed at some of New York's finest and hippest galleries, and his style, though a little macabre for some, is personal, unique and risque. If Binikos' works are being viewed in a parallel universe right now, no doubt someone is saying, "He could have been a bartender." In this universe we're lucky. Here he is both.

1 1/2 oz. Miller's Gin
1/2 oz. Amaro Montenegro Herbal Liqueur
1/2 oz. Kummel (Stock) Liqueur
1/2 oz. red Verjus unfermented grape juice
1/2 oz. blood orange juice (preferably made from Sicilian blood
oranges)
1/2 oz. Yuzu juice (The frozen not salty kind)
2 drops Regan's Orange Bitters
2 drops Angostura Bitters
2 kumquats
1/4 oz. 60-year-old balsamic vinegar
Pepper powder

Cutting forty-nine hours of live footage to a reasonable length can't be easy, but Mangolte's film, ninety-two minutes of extreme close-ups showing Abramovic in self-inflicted agony, captures little of the rousing live experience. Of course, back then, audience members were free to leave anytime. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such nihilism combined with such narcissism,” said Pat Steir, when the lights came up. Personally, I was wishing they had opened the bar before the screening—and I am not a drinker.

Never take anything too literally in the art world, I always say, particularly the term black tie. Matthew Barney, for instance, merely donned a black T-shirt under his dark blue suit and still looked pretty suave. Abramovic, who scripted the entire evening within an inch of its Serbian life, had instructed the women to be “outrageously elegant,” and they eagerly submitted, most with more elegance than outrage. For her part, Abramovic wore a blue dress created for her by Givenchy, though she chose her own accessories: cheap plastic Halloween-skeleton earrings, one black, one white. The best outfit, though, probably belonged to the cherub-faced heldentenor Antony, who wrapped a white parachute-silk schmatte around his considerable chest with even more considerable élan. “It’s just a rag that was lying around,” he told me, but he looked fabulous, really, and sounded even more angelic than usual, including, of course, on “Happy Birthday.”

Rumor had it that Abramovic had tried to book Eartha Kitt to join him in a duet. Imagine! As it happened, Antony had plenty of friends and collaborators in the audience: an effervescent David Byrne (with new flame Cindy Sherman), a grim Lou Reed (with his old flame, Laurie Anderson), and a sweetly bojangled Björk, very attentive as her tablemate Kiki Smith explained the difference between this down-home, old-friends affair and the stiffer kind of art dinners one usually suffers at institutions. “Most of the time, you’re the one artist at the table, and you’re expected to entertain everyone else,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she took in the 350 familiar faces around her. “This is the biggest concentration of artists I’ve ever seen in one room!” agreed Shirin Neshat. “When it wasn’t a funeral, you mean,” someone else chimed in. (In fact, this very rotunda would become the site of a memorial for art historian Robert Rosenblum just a few days later.)

Unusually, for an art-world event today, just about everyone at the dinner could remember the '70s. That’s when Abramovic first came on the scene with Ulay, her former mate. Much to everyone’s surprise, he was there, too, standing up to cheers as Abramovic called out his name on a list of others—Chrissie Iles and Artforum’s own Charles Guarino—who shared her birthday (though not her birth year, as she was careful to note). At last, it was time for cocktails, and she raised a glass to toast, well, everyone, with “The Marina Abramovic,” a thick blood-red drink designed for the occasion by artist Ektoras Binikos from ingredients that might have included eye of newt and toe of frog, for all we knew, though we were told it was made from sixty-year-old balsamic vinegar, bitters, kumquats, and—in place of the blood and tears Marina had desired—red pepper powder. Oh yes, and gin.

On a menu described as “a fusion between the European Union and American democracy, designed to strengthen the body and elevate the soul,” the main course was—vegans be damned—“Serbian lamb killed in the traditional way.” (I’m told that means it was strangled.) During the meal, Abramovic thanked all of her significant others, starting with hubby Paolo Canevari and including her trainer and her all-important dermatologist, the notorious Dr. Norman Orentreich. (At this, there was much knowing laughter—a little too knowing, if you ask me.) “When you get old, you get wise,” Abramovic said, making me wonder if I should not be running out for Thermage or perhaps to slaughter a lamb, before I turn sixty, too.