“When I thought about where I would have my last meal a bad comedy came to mind. You avoid thinking about that moment if you take it too seriously so I think you have to see the humour in it. Many people have little time in their schedule to fit in a meal. The last meal is about dying so I thought, ‘What if you have no time to die?’ Most people would probably have it next to their office. So a last meal would end up being a matter of convenience, which makes it very absurd in a way.

If I think about it more seriously, I would have my last meal on a picnic table in that film Out of Africa. Because I would know it would be my last meal I wouldn’t be afraid of any snakes or lions. As I have most of my social meals in big openings or ceremonial circumstances, I would do a last meal like a wedding meal and get as many friends together as possible. It would be a feast.

A table is like a little stage where you deal with other people. It’s funny because I don’t have a table at home; I don’t enjoy cooking – I don’t have a kitchen! Twenty years ago there was a moment when I cooked but then I just got too busy. I also started disliking objects. It happened to me when I was in East Berlin. One winter, I lost everything when a water pipe burst while I was away travelling. Ever since, I like to not have things. That includes pots and pans and stoves.

I think the M. Wells restaurant at moma ps1 is a very radical statement. They work as artists. They work without compromise and they do it very innovatively, adding a certain serious radicalism to the museum. A restaurant is a grounding experience in a museum, just like a garden or a bookstore can be.

I remember when I was a child, I watched a television programme on how Joseph Beuys was cooking in his kitchen. He was peeling the potatoes and doing everything himself. And I was very impressed by this. So in a way, I think of food as an artistic activity.

When we did the first Berlin Bienniale, in 1998, we had this big gymnasium and built a whole Thai village. We got hold of the best Thai cook in Germany and we cooked Thai food for thousands of guests.

During the 1990s, when I was travelling so much, I would only eat wrapped food. I would eat Snickers or Twix bars. I would never really eat any vegetables or fruit. Instead, I ate processed food like bagels or French fries. That has changed in the past 10 years: now I mostly eat greens and fruit. I’m going through a cleanse right now so that’s why I’m enjoying eating lighter food at M. Wells. But I have two temptations: I live next to Chinatown so I love the fried dumplings there, and the doughnuts from the nearby Doughnut Plant.

I used to do these notorious parties in New York where the only food offered was Doritos. I’d serve them on disposable aluminium roasting trays. I haven’t done one of those in a while.

Sitting down and eating is like a ritual; the most frequent ritual in the art world is the dinner after an exhibition opening. I imagine a last meal to be just like a scene in a Dogme or [Pier Paolo] Pasolini movie.”

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One of the world’s best known contemporary-art curators, Klaus Biesenbach is the director of MoMA PS1, chief curator at large at the Museum of Modern Art and the founding director of the Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Born near Köln, Biesenbach founded KW in 1991 and the Berlin Biennale in 1996, beginning work with MoMA the same year.