Parallel Universe/Ecuador, 2007
Food is the quintessence of our existence. Not the mega, double-super-extra cheeseburger or the limply sliced chicken pieces in your post-clubbing-hour kebab, but food that is nourishing our tummy and our soul. This week Poonperm Paitayawat is asked to rate gastronomically inspired artworks worthy of Michelin star recommendations at the PM Gallery and House’s exhibition Pot Luck. Being fussy as he is, would he give any good reviews to anyone?
“Shangri-la Café: A Division of Gold Mountain Restaurant” (2006)
SUPERSWEET must insist this isn’t an in-house restaurant but a mixed media installation. Don’t let the term “mixed media” fool you. This is NOT Hakkasan or Royal China Club with carved out wood decoration and sumptuous nouvelle-chinoise elegance. “Shangri-la Café” is Karen Tam’s metaphor for China. China for the ordinary, that is. With a focus on the Chinese Diaspora, Tam attempts to reconstruct the transcendental, authentic Chinese identity that involves food, dining and family. Still, something is missing: the aroma of roast duck marinated in Chinese herbs, the wok clinging and clanging, the waiters barking out orders and the diners who never going to stop talking.
Poor service. No takeaway option.
"Cheap Rice" (2006)
Subodh Gupta gives us a rickshaw adorned with identical brass pots –not just one, two, ten, but almost a hundred! If the first question that comes to mind is “how could you ride this?” you’re on the right track. Think of the rickshaw as a mean by which the breadwinner earns his living, and the pots as the amount of food he need for his family. Surely, it is such a heavy duty! Despite its vibrant Bollywood colours, “Cheap Rice” is a powerful and emotional story of day-to-day struggle and underprivileged life in India where Gupta originates. There, too, is a sense of gratefulness, pride and nostalgia, of family value that binds every member of the family together and makes the harsh life more bearable. SUPERSWEET would love to see more of Gupta’s works.
“Parallel Universe/Ecuador” (2007)
Can’t picture a lama dodging in a supermarket? Well, you don’t have to squeeze your brain out imagining any more. Check out “Parallel Universe/Ecuador” by Manuel Saiz. The Spanish-born, London-based artist let the beast loose in the alleys of packaged food and plastic containers capturing on film the moments the handsome lama sniffing packets of crisps and nibbling bottles of cola. Hilarious, the juxtaposition of the natural being with the unnatural, codified background serves as a real electric shock reminding how artificial and materialistic our consumerist nature has become.
This would have been better if the lama made it to the till.
“Cake Stool” (1996)
No, you can’t sit on it, nor eat it. Jana Sterbak’s “Cake Stool” challenges our perceptions turning psychological impossibilities into physical possibilities and vice versa. Yes, it is a real cake –spongey style with metallic stool legs. Let’s say if you halve the cake, fill it with strawberry jam, whipped cream and syrup, and dust some icing sugar on top, you’ll have a perfect Vicky Sponge. But, that.’s it You have to choose, between sitting and eating. You begin to ponder, if this is hygienic enough to eat, or strong enough to carry the weight of your luscious arse. Yet, in reality, the gallery watchmen have the final say: the “Cake Stool” is only there to be admired by the eyes.
The cake smells nice. Is it freshly baked everyday?
“Bread Line” (1979)
Antony Gormley’s “Bread Line” might have reminded you of the story of Hansel and Gretel, of the economic hardships and of struggling life in any consumerist society. Yet, can anybody get over the fact that this is some dry bread formed into a line? Literally! Some bread and a line. Some bread and a line…
An ultimate feast for gallery mice!
“Babel” (2004)
Glaswegian artist Gayle Chong Kwan’s “Babel” is part of the large-scale photographic work Cockaigne Series (2004). Focusing on the politics of food and tourism, Kwan’s “Babel” tower is made of thinly sliced dry meat glued together to resemble the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. Kwan’s re-envisioning of the glutton’s heaven is, on the first glance, as alluring as Brueghel’s “The Tower of Babel” but on a closer inspection, is as putrid as rotten shite.
Straight out of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen’s Nightmare.
Pot Luck Exhibition @ PM Gallery and House Until 2 Jan 2010
Word: Poonperm Paitayawat ?
Photography: “Parallel Universe/ Ecuador” Courtesy of Manuel Saiz; “Cheap Rice” Courtesy of Subodh Gupta and Pierre Huber Collection, Switzerland; “Babel” Courtesy of Gayle Chong Kwan; “Shangri-la Café” Courtesy of Karen Tam