Six Bars of Chocolate: Wardell Milan

Back in November, a post on The Moment blog inspired me to organize a chocolate tasting. It was also around this time that I met artist Wardell Milan. (If my memory serves me correctly, we bonded over a piece of sweet & salty cornbread at a Studio Museum after party.)

A few weeks ago, I arrived at Milan's Chelsea studio with 14 different bars of chocolate that I purchased from Gristede's and Whole Foods—nothing too fancy. He selected six of them for the tasting (the suggested limit in one sitting) and we sampled chocolates, from lightest to darkest, with some fruit-infused varieties in between. After each sample, we cleansed our palettes with water and/or small chunks of white bread. We also talked about three bodies of work currently in progress in Milan's studio: Gods and Monsters; Ladies Flower Garden; and a beautiful suite of polychromatic flowers.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and now based in Manhattan, Milan is represented by Taxter & Spengmann Gallery. He earned an MFA in photography from Yale University, and his BFA in photo and painting from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Milan was an artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2006-2007.

Our chocolate tasting began with a bar of Scharffen Berger Extra Rich Milk Chocolate and ended with me nearly vomiting.

____________________________________________

Self Portrait, 2008. Black and white photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Taxter & Spengemann Gallery.

Contemporary Confections: So, you have to comment on the flavor, aroma, texture, aftertaste, etc. I’ll start. This [Scharffen Berger Extra Rich Milk Chocolate] bar is creamy.

Wardell Milan: Yes, but I really don’t taste the milk, or creaminess, until a few seconds after I put it in my mouth.

CC: It really doesn’t taste like anything at first.

WM: I’m interested in the crunch.

CC: [Laughing] I basically swallowed mine, so I didn’t notice. But the milkiness releases slowly and lingers in your mouth for a while, right? This is dangerous. I need more, so the flavor can linger a little longer.

WM: I kind of like that it takes a moment.

CC: It's 41 percent cocoa, made with cocoa beans, sugar, milk, cocoa butter, non fat milk, non GMO lecithin and whole vanilla beans - not a lot.

WM: Well, we have to see what’s in the Dove Bar.

CC: I’m scared to find out.

[Tasting the Dove Milk Chocolate Blueberry Almond Bar]

CC: I don’t taste the blueberry.

WM: I don’t taste much of anything.

NC: I don’t taste the almond either. It seems fake, like it's just there for texture.

WM: I feel like I’m eating a crunch bar.

CC: The aftertaste is not very good...Oh, now I taste the blueberry.

WM: I haven’t tasted the blueberry yet…Oh, there it is.

CC: It’s more of a blueberry aroma.

WM: I don’t like the texture...and I don’t want a blueberry in my chocolate. If I have chocolate, I want the blueberries on the side. Something about having them inside the chocolate bar just doesn’t seem right...I’m doggin’ it and [yet] this is my fourth piece.

CC: I noticed.

WM: I just want to make sure.

CC: Riiiight.

Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair, 2005. Digital C-print on aluminum. Courtesy of the artist and Taxter & Spengemann Gallery.

[Standing in front of Milan's latest diorama (not pictured)]

WM: I’m working on a couple different bodies of work - this one is called Gods and Monsters. This diorama is supposed to be a church with columns.

I’m thinking about religion, politicians, and those figures we look to as leaders. So I’m thinking about this body of work in terms of individuals that we supersize, like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or even the Pope. They’re really just basic people whose life accomplishments have lead them to be appointed to various positions, but people [treat them as if they're] superhuman, like superheroes almost. In reality, they’re just individuals with the same types of bodies and flesh as everyone else. They’re mortal. So I’ve been thinking about their titles and what that means. Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America, so he has all of this power. But if he were to die or lose his position what happens to that power? Where does it go? It gets transferred to someone else...I’m also thinking about people’s hopes and what they invest in individuals.

CC: I’m reminded of Chris Rock’s Bigger and Blacker. Remember when he talks about President [Bill] Clinton and Monica Lewinski? He said, “Everybody expects this holy behavior, because he's the President. He ain't Rev. Clinton. lt ain't Pastor Clinton. lt ain't Maharajah Clinton. He's just a man.” But people had invested so much in him and were astonished when he did this “ungodly” thing.

[Laughter]

WM: In this diorama in particular, I’m thinking about iconography in religion. I’m not sure what is going to happen inside the space of this of this [diorama], but I had a clear idea of the type of space I wanted to construct.

CC: So you build the diorama, photograph it, and then what happens?

WM: That’s it. The photographs are made. Everything that happens exists in the space of the diorama.

CC: Have you ever shown the maquette?

WM: No, never. But I’m trying to build this one so I can actually save it. All of the others have been destroyed.

CC: Are you getting ready for a particular show?

WM: I’m just thinking about bodies of work. I have ideas that I’ve wanted to flush out for a long time. Most of the time I am thinking about a [particular] show and my titles for the work often come before the work does.

CC: What inspires your titles?

WM: A lot of times they come from reading.

CC: What type of stuff do you read?

WM: Just about everything. Right now, I’m reading [Ralph Waldo] Emerson, [Edgar Allan] Poe, and a book called The Savage Detectives. It’s about this young guy, I think he’s 17 or 18 years old, and he’s chronicling his life experiences--daily encounters, the women that he meets, etc. The [protagonist] is a poet. He’s part of a group called the Visceral Surrealists. There’s a lot of talk about poetry, writers and literature in the book. It’s a good book. I look at a lot of fashion magazines too.

CC: Which fashion magazines do you read?

WM: W, Tar, Arena Homme. I like the magazines that sit between art and fashion.

[Tasting Perugina Milk Chocolate with Raspberry Filling]

WM: Oh, I don’t like this chocolate at all. What is this!?

CC: It’s jelly.

WM: I just have a problem with chocolate that has this type of filling.

CC: I've been told that I have weird taste...I kind of like this.

WM: I think things with a jelly filling should be reserved for pastries, but that’s just me.

[Milan tosses the rest of his sample into the trash bin]

CC: The chocolate around it is nondescript. I guess they were thinking that the taste wouldn't matter with this jelly filling.

WM: Yeah, it’s almost as if they just focused on the idea of jelly. What’s the jelly made of?

CC: Apparently, red raspberries…

WM: That is not red raspberry.

CC: ...Mixed with corn syrup, invert sugar, cocoa butter, pectin, agar, citric acid, and artificial raspberry flavor. Why do you need artificial raspberry flavor if you have real ones? Something’s not right.

WM: Right!

CC: Okay, let’s try the next one - Swiss Bittersweet Lindt Dark Chocolate.

This chocolate has the same bite or crunch as the Scharffen Berger...Mmm, that’s good.

WM: Similar to the first bar, it takes a little while for the taste to introduce itself, but it is good.

CC: It’s a good strong chocolate.

WM: Do you prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate?

CC: Dark chocolate has really grown on me in the past few years. I used to think it was the nastiest thing on earth, but the more I eat it the more I like it. Dagoba makes an extra extra dark chocolate bar that’s really intense and good.

WM: I think that’s what I like about this one [by Lindt]. It’s not like some other dark chocolates that are really intense and can be a little overwhelming. I like the subtlety of this.

CC: I can’t find the percentage of cocoa on the wrapper, but dark chocolate is supposed to be better for your health.

WM: That’s what Oprah says, and Oprah knows it all, right? Why is it that every week Oprah has the new favorite thing or "life changing" movie? "Slum Dog Millionaire - life changing!" Next week, "Revolutionary Road - Oh my god, life changing!"

[Laughter followed by a long discussion about Oprah, physical fitness and health]


CC: You said that you’re working on two other bodies of work?

WM: Yes, one is called Ladies Flower Garden. There are about 20 of these collages in total. With this body of work I was thinking about the female figure and ideals of beauty. The photographs come from Paolo Roversi, the fashion photographer, and they’re all of supermodels. They’re really beautiful photographs of fantastic women. I was thinking about how these images and ideas of beauty are dispersed and how people interact with these images and associate themselves with these particular definitions of glamour.

I worked as this company called Box, a high-end digital retouching company. I’m sure we worked on this [Roversi] book; the company works on most of the major fashion magazines and books. Working there, I would see all of these supermodels and celebrities before they were retouched. Yeah, they’re really beautiful, but after a couple hours, the bodies are slimmer, the hair is longer, some heads were taken off of one body and placed on another. These different ideas about beauty that you see in magazines are constructed in a room by just a couple of people.

The women in the office would see this process and how people looked in the beginning. Then they would see the final image in the magazine and say “Wow, she’s so beautiful. Oh my god, I wish my body and breasts were like that.” And I’m like "You worked on these images! You enhanced her breasts, you elongated her legs, and you put someone else’s head on this body." It’s interesting how someone’s perception of their self can become really warped by looking through these pages.

In some of the earlier collages [in this series] I was interested in defacing these women and making them into grotesque bodies and forms. But then in that deformation, I was hoping to make them beautiful again - making the ugly beautiful. I made floral headdresses and gowns. They didn’t have these nature scene collages [that you see here in the studio]. I started to think about nature and our interaction with the landscape and how these fashion images are similar ideals of nature...

[Tasting Green & Black’s Organic Cherry Dark Chocolate Bar]

CC: I didn’t realize this had something in the middle. Whew!

WM: Yeah, the cherry flavor is really, really pronounced.

CC: It’s tart. It gives you little aftershocks.

WM: And I didn’t even get to the middle - I just got the chocolate around it.

CC: Organic dried cherries, organic sunflower oil, organic raw cane sugar....and 80 percent dark chocolate.

WM: Oh, wow that cherry aftertaste.

CC: I need bread.

WM: Right!

[Tasting 100% Vegan Dark Chocolate by Vintage Plantations]

CC: This should be intense.

WM: Eww.

CC: Eww. Oh, oh, uh, uh.

[Caruth spits her chocolate into the trash bin]

WM: [Laughing] What is this? There’s no taste. This is nasty. It has absolutely no flavor.

CC: That is the most disgusting…Ick! What’s in this? Rather, what’s not in this?

WM: Pure cocoa mass, no sugar, no vanilla or aroma added. That’s it.

[Milan spits his chocolate out too]

I was trying to give it a second chance, but that’s no good. What is that aftertaste?

CC: I can’t tell you, because I’d have to taste it again. Uh!

WM: Nicole, you’re shivering.

[Laughter]

CC: This is chocolate for your enemies.


CC: So, what’s your third body of work in progress?

WM: These drawings/paintings.

CC: Is this acrylic?

WM: Acrylic, oil, crayon…It has taken me a long time to get to this point with these drawings. There have been a lot of different stages.

I think of the flowers as bodies. In my older work, I drew boxers. I think of these flowers not so much as boxers, but certainly as figures. In the boxer series, I was interested in not only the interaction between two athletes - the boxing ring and what happens during those moments of combat - but I was also thinking about the stresses the body goes through in that sport and how it’s damaged and repairs itself. Visually, I wanted to break down different parts of the body to think about the frailty of our physical selves. I began to think of the flower in terms deconstructing a body. Often times when I’m making these work and adding color, I’m thinking about coloring outside the line as a way of breaking down the idea of the flower - deconstructing it by coloring outside the line.

CC: Did coloring books cross your mind?

WM: Definitely.

CC: It’s always interesting to me how much pride kids express in their work before they've learned to stay inside the lines. Those pictures are actually more interesting than what they make as they get older and so-called sophisticated. When they stay within the lines the pictures lack character.

WM: Actually, I wanted my god daughter - I think she’s turning eight this year - to work on some of these.

CC: That’s wonderful.

WM: There’s something that’s just nice about a kid’s art making. They are thinking more about the color and the activity of it, not so much about the final product or coloring in the lines. They are not so conscious of what something should look like or be.

CC: I think kids can teach adults a lot about looking. They see things we just can’t see.

[...]

WM: Which chocolate did you most enjoy?

CC: The Lindt Bittersweet. The second best was the Scharffen Berger.

WM: The Scharffen Berger was pretty good...I want to sample the Dove again.

Click here to learn more about Milan's work (PDF file).