On Food, Conviviality and Cultures
Posted on April 06 2023
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On Food, Conviviality and Cultures │ March 24 - April 13, 2023
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Author Silvia Colombo
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In many ways, food can be considered as a synonym for life. In fact, it is not just something we feed our body with, keeping it alive thanks to its nutritive properties. It is also a vehicle of words, values and occasions like collectivity, culture, traditions and sharing. These two registers - the practical and functional, at side of the other, which is more poetic and abstract - are among the main focus of the group exhibition On Food, Conviviality and Cultures, open at Spazio Millepiani in Rome from the 24 March to the 13 April 2023. The photos, digital and video works here selected look at the same topic under different points of view, highlighting various practices, and, at the same time mirroring the reality as it is.
Along this path, where nothing is left to chance, the whole spectre of daily life is unveiled, in all its facets - from trivial to aulic, from metaphoric to sentimental manifestations.
Along this path, where nothing is left to chance, the whole spectre of daily life is unveiled, in all its facets - from trivial to aulic, from metaphoric to sentimental manifestations.
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Lynda Harwood Swenson, My Favorite Dinner, 2018
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The artists on show are taking us by the hand, guiding us around the world, in search of more or less known (or unknown) places, ingredients, and culinary practices. But be careful: approaching contemporary art through a topic that in recent years has been so popular and successful - recipes and cooking in general - becoming part of the common taste seems easy, but only in appearance. Along the exhibition path, you will realise that observing the images is not enough: it is worthwhile to linger a bit, looking for details, trying to catch the nuances, and understanding the affinities (or ruptures) of the artworks exhibited.
Multiple are, for example, the artists focusing their work on ‘table conviviality’, considering food as a vehicle, a medium leading to a moment worth sharing with someone (singular) or an entire community (plural). Through the re-enactment of a traditional meal, of a ‘typical dish’ prepared on the occasion of national holidays as well as local feasts, the encounter with the other is finally fulfilled. At the same time, thanks to the recurrence of certain ‘culinary situations’, tracing a line between past and present (with an eye towards the future) becomes possible.
Multiple are, for example, the artists focusing their work on ‘table conviviality’, considering food as a vehicle, a medium leading to a moment worth sharing with someone (singular) or an entire community (plural). Through the re-enactment of a traditional meal, of a ‘typical dish’ prepared on the occasion of national holidays as well as local feasts, the encounter with the other is finally fulfilled. At the same time, thanks to the recurrence of certain ‘culinary situations’, tracing a line between past and present (with an eye towards the future) becomes possible.
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The visual representation of convivial places is another tematic choice easily re-traceable within this exhibition path, and it guides the visitor through public spaces, such as the covered markets, as well as private rooms - like the artist’s or other people’s kitchen. Within this series of artworks, generally characterised by a more realistic - sometimes brutal - touch, the observer is suddenly thrown into a typical day (or moment) lived by a stranger.
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Kristina Mos, Natura Morta #1, 2021
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The idealisation of the images here leaves room for the imperfection, that becomes beautiful by virtue of the arts. Moreover, the exhibition even includes some gastronomic still life pictures hiding renowned references that can be read as more or less conscious artistic tributes. As an example, the picture portraying a table with leftovers reminds us of the ‘tableaux pièges’ by Daniel Spoerri - although here we find a different, bidimensional medium instead of the three-dimensional tables produced by Spoerri.
On the other hand, other images recall Caravaggio’s still life, with regard to the contrast between light and shade. Or, again, monochrome shots black on black not only put the texture, the surfaces and the shapes of the objects in the foreground, but clearly wink at Louise Nevelson’s compositions.
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Ultimately, the exhibition On Food, Conviviality and Cultures analyses contemporaneity through a precise filter, capable of absorbing and then restituting the complexity of a topic that only seems simple. Here, the whole world is enclosed in a group of pictures, going from the particular (ingredient) to the universal (the community), from the individual to the collective.
On the other hand, other images recall Caravaggio’s still life, with regard to the contrast between light and shade. Or, again, monochrome shots black on black not only put the texture, the surfaces and the shapes of the objects in the foreground, but clearly wink at Louise Nevelson’s compositions.
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Ultimately, the exhibition On Food, Conviviality and Cultures analyses contemporaneity through a precise filter, capable of absorbing and then restituting the complexity of a topic that only seems simple. Here, the whole world is enclosed in a group of pictures, going from the particular (ingredient) to the universal (the community), from the individual to the collective.
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Elena Otvodenko, Black on Black, p.2; Black on Black, p.1, 2020
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Rogerio Voltan, Matcha; Flour, 2021-2022
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Haoua Amadou, Peppers, 2020
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Liz Long, Breakfast of Champions, 2021
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ON FOOD, CONVIVIALITY AND CULTURES
March 24th - April 13th, 2023
Millepiani - Via N. Odero,13, Rome - IT
linfo@millepiani.eu
+39 06.888.17.620
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