If you thought tabloids were disappearing, well they’ve made a come back: as desserts! Edible sheets of newspapers were distributed at the latest Kreëmart event in Miami. Digestible News was the work of Antoni Miraldo –a pioneer of food art.

Raphael Castoriano founded Kreëmart in 2006 in association with the American Patrons of Tate. Castoriano, a New York art advisor, started the collective as a way to explore the possibility of food and art coming together as performance. The premise is simple and fun. Kreëmart pairs artists with pastry chefs to produce multi sensory, interactive art experiences that can be described as food for thought. Since their inception, these feasts have been held in New York, Moscow and Miami.

Art happenings are an opportunity for people to play with a concept as a group. At one of these artist-meets-patissier events, what looked like a cut of bloody, raw meat served on butcher paper was in fact a cake made of guava? Los Carpinteros, the creators of the piece, asked guests to take a ticket and wait for their number to be called before they ordered.

Another sweet concept was the toilet paper lounge made for the birthday of art critic Lind Yablonsky. The installation featured edible white tiles and a roll of toilet paper made from papier de riz, which was to be torn by hand and dipped in chocolate. Guests were allowed to vandalize the white tiles using special pens, and afterward they devoured the tiles as cake.

In Habito, performance artist Maria Jose Arjona wore a dress made of 1,000 hard candies. She took each candy out of its wrapper and fed it to the guests one at a time. People would come up and wait for her to place the candy in their mouths, establishing a level of trust between the audience and the artist during the exchange. After the candies were finished, Arjona was left wearing all the empty wrappers. The ephemeral is emphasized throughout the performances. People might meet and connect, but then the food is gone and so is the moment.

Jovana Stokic, art historian and curator, conducted a panel for Kreëmart Salons at Art Basel Miami in 2010. The discussion focused on the importance of defining what is sustainable in art (or what can endure as art). The panel cited that many contemporary artists continue to explore the idea of the fleeting moment as the central proposition in their work. Some do not even attempt to document their performances. Fortunately Kreëmart is not as radical, and there is footage of theses art happenings –in the form of short stylized films– on the Kreëmart website. ■