[-empyre-] art as food; food as art...

[Amanda McDonald Crowley]

Hi all,

So as we enter the last days of the ArtTechFood thread on -emprye, I'm going to try to respond to our most recent discussant's posts, but I also want to close out with some resources that might be of interest to people here who want to continue to explore this territory.

First up, I wanted to draw people's attention to some of Nicole Caruth's writing on the topic. Although she didn't yet mention it here earlier, Nicole published occasional blog entries on Art21 titled Gastro-Vision between 2009 and 2012. It is journalistic in style, but gives a really super overview of the kinds of work artists were doing during this period (a number of whom are discussants here but many others besides): http://blog.art21.org/?s=gastro-vision&x=13&y=13

The last post (I think, correct me if I'm wrong Nicole) written with Megan Fizell and Andrew Russeth, "The Best in Food-Art 2012", does a great job of drawing our attention,to a broad cross section of artworks and exhibitions - some of which are about food; many of which are actually edible.

What is really great about the blog is that she references such a broad diversity of art projects and exhibitions that address our topic this month: as I review the posts, she has me thinking now about art that is about our food systems; as well food as art (and again, I am not talking about the culinary arts here, rather about art as an interventionist strategy). It has also really got me thinking about food and art as an act of radical hospitality, in much the same way that the work of Gay Bilson started me off on this track. 

In that vein, its really worth noting the exhibition, organized by the SMART Museum of Art in Chicago, FEAST: radical hospitality in contemporary art http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/feast gives a great overview of the work of artists who might not be thinking about food per se, but they do draw attention to how hospitality and good conversation happen over food. Perhaps drawing us back, once again, to the fundamental principles of a Symposium.

Poignantly, Beatriz da Costa's last body of work is also the subject of one of the last posts in Nicole's series of posts on this topic. Renate has already mentioned that -empyre dedicated a month to a discussion of her work, after her death. For me the reminder that her last body of work dealt so much with how food affects our health is a great reminder that art, tech, and food are profoundly important to life.

best

Amanda

--
Amanda McDonald Crowley 
Cultural Worker / Curator
http://publicartaction.net

@amandamcdc