A new WikiLeaks release of stolen emails belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta reveal an invitation by his brother to a “Spirit Cooking dinner” at the home of artist Marina Abramovic.
“Spirit Cooking with Essential Aphrodisiac Recipes” was released by Ms. Abramovic in 1996, but the “ingredients” call for “fresh breast milk with fresh sperm milk” to be consumed “on earthquake nights.”
New York’s Museum of Modern Art called it a “cookbook” for “evocative instructions for actions or thoughts.” Another recipe calls for “fresh morning urine.”
“Are you in NYC Thursday July 9 Marina wants you to come to dinner Mary?” Tony Podesta says in an email forwarded to his brother June 28, 2015.
“Dear Tony, I am so looking forward to the Spirit Cooking dinner at my place,” Ms. Abramovic says in a June 25 email sent at 2:35 a.m. GMT +2. “Do you think you will be able to let me know if your brother is joining? All my love, Marina.”
Ms. Abramovic is a well-known artist who has performed since the early 1970s. Her latest memoir, “Walk Through Walls,” was reviewed by The New York Times Nov. 1.
“You will need to be able to withstand a great deal of conversation about clairvoyants and tarot cards and didgeridoos and kundalini life forces and monks and gurus and ‘how the soul can leave the body through the center of the fontanel of the head’ to make it very far in this memoir,” the Times wrote.
The review goes on to note her fascination with masochism and spirituality, along with her “I take off my clothes and cut myself” era and the “I-run-into-things-while-naked period.”
The newspaper also notes, for all intents and purposes, that Ms. Abramovic sees herself as a mystic.
“Ms. Abramovic reports in ‘Walk Through Walls’ that under the right circumstances, she can foresee world events,” the newspaper wrote. “‘I dreamed of an earthquake in Italy: 48 hours later, there was an earthquake in southern Italy. I had a vision of someone shooting the Pope: 48 hours later, someone tried to shoot Pope John Paul II.’”
Adding to the aura surrounding Ms. Abramovic is an interview with singer Lady Gaga that was uploaded to YouTube May 30, 2010. The entertainer praises a German performance where Ms. Abramovic “laid on a table” with guns, condoms, sleeping pills and ropes.
“There was a sign that said the museum goers could do as they pleased to her and they were not responsible for anything that happened,” the singer said. “Somebody tried to f– her and somebody came by and stopped them. They gave her sleeping pills and ripped her shirt open. … She was limitless.”
After news of news of Ms. Abramovic’s invitation broke Friday morning on Drudge Report, the artist told Art News that she was “outraged.”
“It was just a normal dinner,” she told the website. “It was actually just a normal menu, which I call spirit cooking. There was no blood, no anything else. We just call things funny names, that’s all.”
WikiLeaks’ latest release comes at an inopportune time for the Clinton campaign, which is reeling from the FBI’s announcement that it has renewed an investigation into the Democrat’s secret email server.
Agents found a treasure trove of documents linked to Mrs. Clinton’s email server while investigating disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner’s illicit text messages to a teenage girl. His estranged wife and longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin told staff that she does not know how the files appeared on his laptop, Politico reported Oct. 31.