Gastro-Vision | Simone Leigh and the Fruits of Her Labor

David Levinthal, Untitled from the series Blackface, 1996. 20 × 24 Polaroid Polacolor ER Land Film, 40 x 33 ½ in (framed). Image via blog.artspace.com

Watermelon is a leitmotif of Blackface memorabilia that flourished during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Depictions of African Americans ravenously eating the fruit helped perpetuate the myth of our collective fondness for it; and reinforce ideas of an inferior race, stereotyped as being shiftless and “interested only in such mindless pleasures as a slice of sweet watermelon.” [1] Ceramic knickknacks like the one pictured above are typical in that the fruit wedge mimics the grin of the eaters. It also serves to emphasize their exaggerated red lip-color and darkly-painted skin, features that starkly contrast the whites of their bug-eyes. Sadly, these minstrel caricatures are not the worst of them. Depictions of adult men could be far more grotesque; they were often portrayed as having mouths as big as a watermelon itself. While this kind of imagery is seen less frequently today, it’s certainly not a thing of the past. Google search President Obama and you’ll find plenty.

Simone Leigh at work on her cowrie shells, 2011. Image via kenyaworkspace.com

New York-based artist Simone Leigh had the watermelon stereotype in mind when she began casting molds from the fruit five years ago. From them she has created nearly 100 ceramic forms now installed at The Kitchen in her solo exhibition You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been. “I could have used any gourd to make molds,” said Leigh. But she saw her sculptures as an opportunity to build a new narrative, to “rewrite the watermelon.” To my surprise, Leigh called the stereotype not disgusting or debasing (as I might have) but of all things “ironic.” Then she explained: watermelon happens to evoke the same language that has been used to negatively brand the black body as “too large, overgrown, fat” and generally “lacking control.” Leigh described the fruit itself as being “kind of preternatural.” At the same time, watermelon is sensual, a so-called aphrodisiac that elicits the words juicy, ripe, and refreshing — expressions often used to compliment or objectify black female bodies. It is in fact how black bodies have been discussed and displayed over time that concerns the artist by and large. [2] To tell you the truth, her work isn’t about food at all.

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Gastro-Vision | It Was a Sweet Year

Monica Martinez/Don Bugito, Mealworm toffee with vanilla ice cream and amaranth and cactus syrup, 2011. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Michelle Edmunds.

At the end of 2009, I looked back on the year through meat, recognizing a proliferation of protein in contemporary art and popular culture. In 2010, with the help of two food-savvy art writers, we surveyed the world of food art and produced an epic post. And now I bring you a year-end roundup all about sweets. Here’s ten projects that caught my eye in 2011:

Monica Martinez of Don Bugito

Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

When you picture yourself eating a big scoop of ice cream you probably don’t think about worms as a topping. Who does? Bay Area artist Monica Martinez. Her new food venture Don Bugito grew out of earlier works concerning informal food economies like street food carts in her native Mexico City, and her ongoing interest in edible bugs. This year, Martinez partnered with Critter founder Philip Ross, and Mezcal Factoria de Santos to prepare a dinner of Edible Insects & Other Rare Delicacies at Headlands Center for the Arts. Guests were served, among other things, wax moth larvae corn custard, and mealworm toffee over vanilla ice cream with amaranth and cactus syrup. How have people responded to Martinez's “mini livestock” gourmet? “Amazingly," she says. With an incubator kitchen already backing the artist, Don Bugito is poised to become a long-term fixture in the Bay Area food scene.

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Acquired Taste: Food and the Art of Consumption

Front: Jennifer Rubell, Mannequin, 2011. Back right wall: Victoria Reynolds, Cartouche of the Resplendent Bung, 2010-11. Photo courtesy Begovich Gallery/sixpackprojects.

Through December 8, Acquired Taste: Food and the Art of Consumption is on view at California State University Fullerton in the Begovich Gallery. The exhibition features twelve artists whose work "focuses our reciprocal relationship to food: what we consume, how we consume it and how it consumes us." Artists include Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Dustin Wayne Harris, MyersBerg Studios, Tattfoo Tan, and Jennifer Rubell.

Rubell's installation (pictured here) invites visitors to place a nut in the mannequin’s inner thigh, then push down on the upper leg to crack it open. According to Rubell's website, "These interactive sculptures embody the two polar stereotypes of female power: the idealized, sexualized nude female form; and the too-powerful, nut-busting überwoman."

Curators Alyssa Cordova and Heather Richards have produced a full-color catalog -- with essays by me,  Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly, and Megan Fizell of Feasting on Art -- available early next year.

Read more about Acquired Taste here >>

Eye Candy: Cornucopia

Xavier Cha, Cornucopia, 2006. [via]

Gastro-Vision | Performing Cotton Candy in a Land of Cockaigne

Will Cotton, Consuming Folly, 2009-2010. Oil on linen, 72 x 96 in. Courtesy the artist and Mary Boone Gallery.

Will Cotton’s candy and pastry-filled landscapes have come to life in recent years, taking the form of a posh pop-up bakery in 2009, and a year later, forming the set of Katy Perry’s music video “California Gurls.” Cotton’s saccharine world materialized again last Friday night at New York’s Prince George Ballroom, where cotton candy took center stage in Cockaigne, the artists’s first live production.

Will Cotton, Cockaigne for Performa 11, 2011. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Scott Catto.

Curated by Stacey Engman for Performa 11, on the one hand, the performance received more hype than it deserved and left some things to be desired. On the other hand, the night was strangely satisfying in that every guest was part of Cotton’s show, an immersive sensory experience that began the minute we crossed the threshold. In a sense, just being there was to become one of the artist’s painted subjects, engulfed by cotton candy in a land of pleasure and plenty.

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On Tap for November

Potential beer colors [via]

"The act of drinking beer with friends is the highest form of art," saith artist Tom Marioni. This month, friends and art lovers can get their brewski on at these events:

On November 10, Angelenos will drink for a good cause at On Tap: The First Annual Art & Beer Invitational. Proceeds will benefit East of Borneo, "a nonprofit collaborative online magazine of contemporary art and its history as seen from Los Angeles." Curated by Lauri Firstenberg (LAXART), Thomas Lawson (CalArts), Franklin Sirmans (LACMA), Ali Subotnick (Hammer Museum), and Dean Valentine (Bowmont Art Partners), the event includes a craft beer tasting presented by Dale Bros, and a silent auction of original artworks donated by young and emerging artists.

On November 20, New Yorkers Tracy Candido and Eleanor Whitney -- founders of the new "socially-engaged happening" EAT ART -- will host a beer tasting and brewing workshop combined with an artist talk. Attendees will gather at the Brooklyn spot Bitter & Esters, where they'll learn about the world of beer from shop co-owner John LaPolla and Colorado based artist Eric Steen. Steen, who uses beer as a medium, will discuss his Performa 2011 project, Brew Pub. Space is limited. Purchase tickets here >>

Gastro-Vision | On Bottle Poppin

Tahir Hemphill, "Champagne Always Stains My Silk," 2011. 

Artist-designer Tahir Hemphill is gathering quirky facts about popular culture via Hip-Hop Word Count, his searchable directory of over 40,000 hip-hop songs. If you’ve ever wanted to know the education level needed to comprehend Lupe Fiasco’s track “Superstar” or the number of polysyllabic words used by 50 Cent in “I Get Money,” Hemphill has the answers. And those burning questions you’ve had about rappers and bubbly? He can give certain insight into that too. At the recent Talk to Me symposium organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hemphill presented his latest data set on the subject of champagne.

Created in collaboration with Steve Varga, Champagne Always Stains My Silk consists of three infographics that give us “a visual history” of champagne brand-mentions spanning thirty years of hip-hop music. What do we learn from this survey? For one thing, in the years following Jay-Z’s boycott of Cristal, the brand’s mention by other rappers declined. (One wonders how this tastemaker’s newfound interest in contemporary art will impact others in the industry.) Hemphill has also found that brand names are most commonly heard in East Coast lyrics; Cristal ranks highest followed by Dom Perignon, Moet, Asti, Chandon, and Ace of Spades. At first listen, this data is about as stimulating as rappers’ fascination with bottle poppin. How is any of this meaningful? Hemphill gives us some food for thought: “When you consider champagne as an aspirational product, this infographic tells a nuanced story of rappers’ relationship to the American Dream.”

Studying the food and drinks that cultures consume will often bring us back to a national ethos, in this case, the supposed ability to achieve prosperity through social and economic participation. When we talk about reaching the American Dream, we often think of — or want to hear about — hard work, sacrifice, and one’s steadfast resolve to rise above whatever circumstances. It seems many rappers have such a story, though it can be hard to hear through all the intemperance and foolery portrayed in hip-hop. The genre’s emphasis on material wealth, extreme celebration, and what artist Kehinde Wiley has called the “heroic desire for cash and domination that hip-hop is so defined by,” has garnered criticisms familiar in contemporary art. Take for example “pop-star” artist Jeff Koons, whose work critics have dismissed, calling it garish, empty, and all about “self-merchandising.” If these ideas have not been Koons’ very point, they have helped propel him to mainstream success. You might say the same for artists of hip-hop for whom gross consumption is part of the game.

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ArtPrize 2011 | GayGayGay

Jeffrey Augustine Songo, GayGayGay Robe, 2011. Cotton and paper on dress form, 20" x 30" x 80."

Today on the ArtPrize blog, I discuss queer art, gay rights, churches, and the work of San Francisco-based artist Jeffrey Augustine Songco. Here's an excerpt from my post:

Gay rights activists and supporters rejoiced in June when lawmakers voted to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, becoming the sixth and largest state to do so. Here in Michigan, where voters banned same-sex marriage and civil unions in 2004, the movement for gay rights suffered another defeat that same month: Holland City Council* voted against a proposal that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity protection to their anti-discrimination policies. I’m told that gay rights has been a hot-button issue in and around Grand Rapids ever since. What does this have to do with ArtPrize, you ask? Everything. Because art is uniquely capable of bringing together communities through conversation. 

*FULL DISCLOSURE: Brian Burch, ArtPrize’s public relations director and editor of the ArtPrize Blog, currently sits on the Holland City Council. 

Of the many art education initiatives taking place this year, the queer-oriented panel discussion organized by Reverend Anne Weirich of Westminster Presbyterian Church, struck me as being not only timely, but also brazen. The starting point for the discussion was Jeffery Augustine Songco’s ArtPrize entry GayGayGay Robe, located in Westminster’s lobby.* Songco was joined by Theresa McClelland and Reverend Jim Lucas of Gays in Faith Together (GIFT); Reverend Matthew Cockrum of Fountain Street Church; Pastoral Counselor, Reverend Lorie Schier; Westminster member and practicing attorney Maribeth Jelks, and Westminster’s Christian educator Sherrill Vore, who moderated the discussion.

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CC on Raiding the Larder

The food-art world has a new online publication called Raiding the Larder. I am honored to have been interviewed by co-founder Maria Pithara for the launch of the site. Check it out >>

ArtPrize 2011 | Chris LaPorte

Chris LaPorte, Cavalry American Officers, 1921. Pencil on paper, 8 x 28 ft. Photo: ArtPrize/Brian Kelly.

ArtPrize 2011 marks my third year of blogging for this radical art festival and competition, where prize winners are determined by public vote. Follow my ongoing blog series, Eyes on the Prize, to learn more about what's happening here. An excerpt from my latest post:

To kick off Eyes on the Prize 2011 — the third and possibly final year of this blog series — I am picking up where ArtPrize 2010 left off: Chris LaPorte and his grand prize-winning drawing Cavalry, American Officers, 1921. Now on view at The Hub, the piece continues to merit “oohs” and “aahs” from viewers yet the grandeur it once possessed is greatly diminished. It could have something to do with its change of location, from the enormity of the Grand Rapids Art Museum to a tech-saavy playroom (complete with a Twitter motion game) and a wall barely long enough to hold it. Yet I can still appreciate that Cavalry is accessible to the public. Its very being here reminds us what the populist vote deemed worthy of $250,000, and the responsibility of voters over the next several days. 

LaPorte’s presence at ArtPrize 2011 doesn’t end at The Hub. A short walk away in Cathedral Square hangs his new piece Funeral Drawing, another photo-inspired work on paper, significantly smaller than Cavalry. At the time of this writing, Funeral Drawing is trending in the Top 25 for the neighborhood of Heartside. That the artist has entered the competition just a year after winning the grand prize seems unfair at best. How could ArtPrize officials allow this to happen? Then again, why didn’t LaPorte’s own ethics prohibit him from participating? His decision suggests that he is not the “nice guy” people have repeatedly described to me, but a man driven by insatiable hunger for money and media attention. Then I met LaPorte and now I don’t believe he’s interested in either. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still against previous winners entering the competition in subsequent years.* There are plenty of good artists in the world who deserve a shot at winning. But LaPorte sounds far from being here to make money or just to be seen. “I originally wasn’t going to participate [this year],” said LaPorte. “Ron Pederson, who is the gallery director of the Exhibition Center at Cathedral Square and also head of the art department at Aquinas College where I teach, asked very nicely and was pretty persuasive. One point that he made was that, the last couple of years, the Exhibition Center at Cathedral Square has had some really wonderful shows, and its unfortunate that it hasn’t received the kind of attention it deserves. I think it’s a valid criticism that people tend to gravitate to just a few locations…Why wait two or three hours in line when you have a city filled with art.” As he continued, speaking of altruistic giving, arts education, and respect for his fellow artists, the self-seeking individual I had earlier imagined never showed his face. If LaPorte has another agenda, he is as skilled at masking it as he is with a number 2 pencil.

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