What is creativity? What do you need to create? Can you audit the creative process?
These are some of the questions that Adrià answers in the exhibition Ferran Adrià: Auditing the Creative Process which is now open at Espacio Fundación Telefónica. This is the Catalan chef’s first exhibition in Madrid and the biggest ever devoted to his work, organized in collaboration with Fundación Telefónica. Three years after closing El Bulli and having raised gastronomy to an unprecedented level, the most celebrated international chef reveals his creative process and the keys to the success of the Cala Montjoi restaurant. The exhibition Ferran Adrià: Auditing the Creative Process, which can be visited free of charge at Espacio Fundación Telefónica from 29 October to 1 March, immerses visitors in the creative universe of Adrià and his team. This is not just an exhibition on cooking but a journey through the hugely successful creative process of El Bulli; success that is rooted in constant reinvention, based on the parameters of innovation and creativity, characteristics that have made it a global point of reference, and not just in the gastronomic sphere. The exhibition devotes almost 1,000 m² to unravelling the creative process and interpreting the El Bulli model, seeking to amaze visitors and inviting them to reflect upon their own creative profile. From huge murals to hundreds of sketches by Adrià himself, not forgetting the objects and appliances that were hallmarks of El Bulli, and even a recreation of the restaurant and the kitchen where the 1,846 dishes that defined the history of this unparalleled temple to gastronomy were created.
The exhibition also includes immersive audio-visual screenings and animations that help to dissect and interpret the chef’s creative universe and provide a deeper insight into his mind-set. The exhibition format features artistic installations as a nod to the latticework structures produced by his great friend, the precursor of British pop art, Richard Hamilton, who never missed a single year of dining at the Cala Montjoi restaurant. A multidisciplinary team worked for more than a year on replicating this creative universe, coordinated by Adrià himself and the team at the Telefónica Foundation. From the maps created by Bestiario, a company specializing in data visualization; the exhibition design by Olga Subirós, to a creative campaign by publicists Toni Segarra and Jorge Martínez and a website developed by Mario Tascón (Prodigioso Volcán), which also invites visitors to discover the exhibition, and everything else that surrounds creative processes in general, with interviews and culinary challenges on the social networks.