An illustration inspired by two articles in the New York Times, combining aesthetic nostalgia and sentimental tones.
Some time ago, I came across two articles in the New York Times that brought back vivid memories of the 1980s, entitled ‘You Don't Need a Party to Make Shrimp Cocktail’ and ‘It's Not a Party Without Shrimp Cocktail’.
Shrimp cocktail: one of those things that, throughout the 1980s, every mother prepared for birthdays or special occasions. That easy opulence, not particularly nutritious but aesthetically iconic, with its coral pink hue that still haunts my colour palette today. In a nutshell, shrimp cocktail was considered an indispensable element of any party of a certain calibre—the signal that “we are celebrating here”.
With its unique colour, that voluptuous, velvety sauce—a kitsch and not entirely innocent mix of mayonnaise, ketchup and a dash of brandy or Tabasco—was the queen of the party.
Not nutritious, but visually magnetic. It was the Pantone of the era: a colour somewhere between Barbie's suit and the walls of a Milanese disco in 1983. More than a recipe, it was an aspirational experience.
In the years that followed, the fashion passed and the shrimp cocktail became a vintage relic. But its revival — as the New York Times headlines also note — is loaded with post-modern irony, a bit like the return of moustaches or white socks: we love what was trashy because now it's cult.
It stuck in my mind and perhaps even in my subconscious. It's as if the shrimp cocktail is a chromatic symbol that, by dint of becoming kitsch, has become almost punk, an atmosphere frozen in time, an ironic nostalgia that makes it desirable again today. Not because it is revolutionary, but because it speaks the visual and sensory language of a bygone era.