Houston Center for Contemporary Craft Celebrates 25 Years with Steinbeisser
Each month, TJ Girard explores the intersection of food and design, from what we eat to how it’s made, presented, and experienced, in her Taste column.
I’ve covered Steinbeisser in this column before, and the Amsterdam studio’s approach to rethinking objects and how we use them continues to hold my interest. Its latest chapter took place on Oct. 23 at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC), where 50 guests sat together at a single long table in the main gallery, surrounded by the exhibition A Material Inheritance, to celebrate the institution’s 25th anniversary.
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft’s 25th-anniversary experimental dinner in collaboration with Steinbeisser. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Founded in 2009 by Jouw Wijnsma and Martin Kullik, Steinbeisser launched its Experimental Gastronomy initiative in 2012, pairing chefs and artists for one-of-a-kind dinners worldwide. This was its first in Texas and one of the few held in the U.S. The menu was entirely plant-based and seasonal, with produce from regional farms that use organic and biodynamic growing practices. The cooking came from two Michelin-starred restaurants: Tatemó in Houston and Nicosi in San Antonio.
The evening opened with Bohyun Yoon’s Singing Buoys, an interactive work in which guests used handheld remotes to steer blown-glass vessels carrying small bites across a water table. When the vessels collided, they rang like bells.
Guests interact with ‘Singing Buoys,’ an interactive sonic installation by artist Bohyun Yoon, created for the amuse-bouche at the Steinbeisser dinner. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
The dinner itself kept the focus on the objects. Tatemó’s first course of nixtamalized squash, rice, kosho, and carrot came on Jaydan Moore’s Sustenance #1, a platter assembled from salvaged antique silver-plated serving pieces.
The first course featured nixtamalized squash, Koshihikari rice, kosho, and carrot, served on Sustenance #1 by Jaydan Moore, a sculptural platter assembled from reclaimed antique silver-plated servingware. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Nicosi’s Kudzumochi Tamal, with pumpkin juice, mushroom, masa foam, hoja santa, and gold leaf, was prepared by chefs Jorge Luis Hernández and Ben Hjelm.
Chefs Jorge Luis Hernández and Ben Hjelm of Nicosi plate the second course. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
The course arrived on Adam Knoche’s Exploding Plate, made from crushed basalt clay pressed and fired at 2,250 degrees Fahrenheit to intentionally fracture, alongside his carafe and sauce bowl made from foraged Texas clay and Galveston shells.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: A ceramic carafe by Adam Knoche, made from foraged Texas clays and filled with roasted mushroom broth; a carved maple wood ottchil lacquer spoon by Kyungwon Hwang; a ceramic sauce bowl by Knoche, incorporating Galveston seashells into locally foraged clay; and Knoche’s Exploding Plate. Photography by Kerrisa Treanor; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Guests ate it with Lisa Marcolongo’s Utensilia spoons, carved from trees felled by storms in Milan and fitted with electroformed recycled copper handles.
A guest uses Lisa Marcolongo’s Utensilia spoon. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Utensilia spoons by Italian artist Lisa Marcolongo. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
The third course, from Tatemó, featured smoked sweet potato, savory granola, and two moles on Seok-hyeon Yoon’s Zwaart Plate, finished in ottchil, a Korean lacquer made from tree sap and used by monastic artisans for some 2,000 years. It was served with Kyungwon Hwang’s lacquered maple spoons. Nearby, Heejoo Kim’s paper-and-lacquer Gokkal Cups sat in front of Mark Reddy’s towering, carved Standing Spoons.
Gokkal Cups by South Korean artist Heejoo Kim, with Mark Reddy’s monumental hand-carved wooden Standing Spoons. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Curator Sarah Darro selected the 13 participating artists, and her statement describes how their work turns the table into “a site of experimentation, sensory discovery, and material invention.” Through carving, casting, firing, and weaving, she writes, “familiar utensils become sculptural provocations.”
Guests hold monumental hand-carved spoons by British artist Mark Reddy. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Guests could purchase the pieces after dinner. Since 2016, Steinbeisser’s online store has offered similar tableware made by artists for its dinners, objects appreciated as much for their beauty as for their thought-provoking functionality.
Ceramic bowls by artist Adam Knoche, crafted from locally foraged Texas clays and finished with richly textured glazes. Photography by Jenny Antill; courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
It was a fitting way for an institution devoted to craft to mark 25 years. The dinner also doubled as a fundraiser for HCCC, and its setting, among an exhibition on silver as both material and metaphor, tied the evening to the institution’s own history. Silver has long been valued for what it reflects, and the dinner offered its own reflection: on an institution’s past and a field that keeps finding new uses for old materials, from storm-felled wood to antique silverware. By handing guests a spoon, a cup, or a plate and asking them to rethink it, HCCC made the case that craft is something to be used, shared, and taken home.
The participating artists, whose work expanded the definition of dining utensils through collaborations with fine-dining chefs, included: Kaye Winwood and Nuala Clooney (glass, USA), Kyungwon Hwang (wood, South Korea), Heejoo Kim (jewelry, South Korea), Adam Knoche (ceramics, USA), Molly Koehn (fiber, USA), Namgwon Lyu (craftsman, South Korea), Lisa Marcolongo (contemporary jewelry, Italy), Edward Lane McCartney (jewelry and multimedia, USA), Jaydan Moore (metalsmith and printmaker, USA), Jakob Niemann (wood, Sweden), Mark Reddy (contemporary maker and artist, UK), Bohyun Yoon (glass, USA), and Seok-hyeon Yoon (designer, Netherlands and South Korea).
