hurrengoa
taska kultur klub: black fire!    Whenever we hear the concept of gastronomy culture, we take a step back. Because most of the times, what gastronomy is seeking with snobism and cheap alchemy is to get even with the so called high culture. That’s why we love the gastro cultural events organizes people such as A Fuego Negro. Their gastronomy culture concept comes from the popular culture of the streets. Whenever we hear the concept of gastronomy culture, we take a step back. Because most of the times, what gastronomy is seeking with snobism and cheap alchemy is to get even with the so called high culture. That’s why we love the gastro cultural events organizes people such as A Fuego Negro. Their gastronomy culture concept comes from the popular culture of the streets.

How has A Fuego Negro’s vision changed since you opened? What has changed?

We opened to be able to work with gastronomy, we wanted to make a type of cooking which people often don’t connect with, make it easily available, for anybody to be able to try it. Obviously, the bar’s full of our personality: music, comics, books... As the years have gone by, cookery has become more and more important and that has enabled us to publish three books, work with a lot of different people, make T-shirts, hold parties, organise concerts and much more. We also wanted to get involved with types of gastronomy which have been seen as unusual until now.

In the world of gastronomy, varied as it is, the rationale is pretty cloned, a rationale which is easy to explain. You, on the other hand, have a more urban and more approachable point of view... Soul, comics, short films, funk, hip hop, records, books... Graphic artand more personal things too, all closely connected with urban things... Why don’t more people do what you do?
You can’t understand us without taking gastronomy into account, but you can’t understand us with just gastronomy either. There are more and more people who understand our gastronomy and our world and, little by little, different places with our same attitude are being opened all over the place: it’s just a few special gastrobars and bistros, but there’s no denying there’s a social change going on! What we don’t understand is that more radical things haven’t yet been opened in the world of gastronomy, adapted gastronomical establishments which look out at what going on in the street.

Being huge fans of comics as we are, your Pintxos y Viñetas and The Black Cook Book are among our favourite recipe books. How did you get all those people to take part?

The relationships sprung up because we followed the artists’ careers and work. Being passionate about their work led to us meeting them in different places and we got everything by valuing their work, buying it and inviting them to come and have lunch in Donostia. To sum up the relationship, we exchange what we know how to do. We bring them to Fuego Negro, bring them to see our bar and feed them all they want; and the artists’ response has always been excellent. For instance, we did Pintxos y Viñetas with Bruno Hidalgo, the artist from Pasaia, and we believed in him. There are lots of artists in The Black Cook Book: Miguel Angel Martin, Montrialgo, Abarrotx, Furillo, Alvarez Rabo and many others. Big names from underground culture! And publishing these books wouldn’t have been possible without these artists’ help, of course!

You’ve also done a lot of things with music, cinema and short films in which everyone’s taken part.

Yes, we’ve met loads of active people and worked with them over the years, for example Fermin Muguruza, who we published Pintxatu with, a record-book. Some of us are DJs and many of our friends are musicians. As we’re huge fans of film noire, we’ve made videos and shows influenced by chemistry along with Axel Casas and Ronquet, and incredible people have always responded.

Taskakulturklub is your latest project. You carry on taking Fuego Negro out to the street and bringing the street into A Fuego Negro...

Founding Taskakulturklub has been another step in the growing up of A Fuego Negro’s activist career. Up to now, It seemed as if all the things we were doing in connection with gastronomy weren’t getting out of the bar and into the street, with this new step we want to want to offer them directly to the street; we live from the streetn and we want to contribute to it with this initiative of ours. Taskakulturklub has been a huge step forward: we’ve set up a non-profit cultural association, with A Fuego Negro behind it, offering a three-monthly programme. What’s more, there’s something every week: we invite people who go beyond their cookery to explain their worlds, give concerts, show films, explain things, give press conferences, shows, theatre. Every Sunday before lunch DJs take the hunger for culture and personal connections beyond Saturday... As well as that, Taskakulturklub’s for anyone who wants to offer something, get their projects listened to and take them forward. An example of that’s the Plater Hautsiak group exhibition, in which twenty Basque artists each turned a broken plate into a work of art Taskakulturklub is made up of activists. Anyone who doesn’t know A Fuego Negro can find out about it by asking for a glass of wine and a pintxo, or by enjoying our two types of menus. Look us up on the web and bon appetite!