Feasting on Art

Jon Feinstein’s 2008 series titled Fast Food features an assortment of sandwiches and sides purchased from chain restaurants. Stripping each foodstuff from a contextualizing background, the food floats against a stark black void — each detail meticulously recorded via the flatbed scanner. For Feinstein, the use of the scanner in place of a camera is twofold; it allows him to render the image in a “rigid, specific and typological manner” and it mirrors the “removal of the hand in food preparation.”[1] Represented sans the gloss of the company branding, the food is presented un-apologetically to the viewer, pressed against an invisible boundary. Each image is paired with a number followed by ‘grams’ to highlight the amount of fat in each meal, as demonstrated in the photograph 16 grams, conceded by the artist to be a Burger King cheeseburger. According to Feinstein, “These photographs investigate the love/hate relationship that many Americans have with fast food, and like many other aspects of popular culture, its ability to be simultaneously seductive and repulsive.”[2]

[1] Feinstein, Jon, email interview, 29 September 2010.
[2] Ibid.

Jon Feinstein, 16 Grams, 2008,
digital c-print, 50.8 x 50.8 cm, edition of 10 + 2 APs.

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Currently on view at Brenda May Gallery is a curated group exhibition titled Art + Humour Me featuring the works of twenty Australian contemporary artists. In addition to a cardigan-wearing tree, the show includes artworks in a range of mediums from sculpture to video and naturally I was drawn to the three cast resin jelly mold sculptures by Janet Tavener (pictured below). For a serious laugh or at the very least a bit of a giggle visit Art + Humour Me on view at Brenda May Gallery (2 Danks St., Waterloo), on view until 7 May 2011.

I am very excited to announce that I will be curating an art + food exhibition next year at Brenda May Gallery. We are now accepting proposals from artists so please read the exhibition outline below and contact the Gallery with any questions or visit the submissions page for further details.

‘Art + Food – Beyond the Still Life’ – October 2012

This exhibition will consider the representation of food within the visual arts and beyond the standard still life tableaux. The consumption of food is a universally shared experience, enabling viewers to connect with the issues surrounding consumerism, food production and cultural identity, explored by the artists. ‘Art + Food – Beyond the Still Life’ will be on exhibition during the Sydney International Food Festival.
Proposals for this show must be received by Friday 27 July, 2012.

Janet Tavener, Baby Blue No 3, 2011
coloured resin, 12 x 12 x 12 cm, Brenda May Gallery

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Green is one of the most abundant colors; there are greens in every imaginable shade and tone throughout the world’s natural landscapes. From green algae to rainforest canopies, green permeates and dominates in its diversity. Individual greens are often blurred as countless plants merge into a color field, many overlapping green leaves forming the density of forests or millions of blades blending to become a sports field’s smooth surface. The simultaneous layering and highlighting that is seen in nature can be compared to the artwork of Jonathan Monk, who’s layering of meaning and medium fuse together history, critique, and technique. Monk’s 2002 work, Green with hidden Noise combines a single solid swath of green painted roughly on a white wall with a slide projection focused directly atop this patch of color. The circular projection itself appears to depict a green scene: a forest of trees? The composition is green on green.

Jonathan Monk, Green with hidden Noise, 2002,
slide installation and wall painting, image courtesy Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe and Berlin

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When considering the colour green, there are a number of connotations that are promptly conjured; green is the colour of money and wealth, through which one can become ‘green with jealously.’ Likewise, it is the colour of nature, growth, and life and one can have a ‘green thumb.’ It is within the secret green porcelain of China, called mi se meaning ‘mysterious colour’, that the two connotations of the colour intersect. Mi se was produced in the 9th and 10th centuries in China and was reserved for only the Emperor to see – let alone use – and the porcelain was so secretive that first verified example was not discovered until 1987. The porcelain was more valuable than gold and silver although its popularity ‘stemmed partly from the Chinese tendency to mythologise art, in order to appreciate it better (1).’ The green colour of mi se was derived from a small amount of iron in the glaze and the porcelain itself was obtained from nature. Mi se ‘comes from the mountains – from their earth and their forests. The wood was used for firing…and the clay was used for the body of the porcelain. But the two together – as wood ash and kaolin – were also used for the glaze that makes up its delicate skin and jade-like colour (2).’ This green porcelain of the earth represented the pureness of nature yet was an elusive commodity that embodied the wealth and power of the Chinese elite.

Lin Fengmian, Still Life, 1988
ink and colour on paper, 68.3 x 68.3 cm, Private collection

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On the surface, the small bar in Newtown, Sydney, filled with antlers and aptly named Moose appears to have little in common with Cafe Felix, an Ann Arbor mainstay known for French-style tapas. The commonality the restaurants share appears in the form of a carefully roasted mushroom, upended to form a small cup and filled with a medley of cheeses. As a college student, I would stretch my food budget in order to indulge in the stuffed mushrooms bathed in a sage-cream sauce at Cafe Felix. The small dish had such an impact on my memory, I tried to recreate it to serve at the first dinner party I held in my first flat. As is always the case, I managed to serve my reconstructed masterpiece to a guest that despises mushrooms. I tucked the recipe away until recently, when an impromptu visit to Moose in Newtown revived my interest. Apart from tasting delicious, this cheese post also serves as a timely reminder that there are only 19 more days until the close of the 2nd annual recipe contest.

Pavlos Dionyssopoulos, Still Life with Mushrooms, 1997
wood, paper and plexiglass, 46.2 x 40 x 40 cm, Private collection

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