art and hunger

Francis Bacon in Vivid Color at the Met

The retrospective of British Painter Francis Bacon that opened last week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of their best shows in years. We are glad Bacon's work is finally getting the attention it deserves. We studied Bacon extensively back in 1993 before many people had started hearing of him. At that time, David Sylvester's book, Interviews With Francis Bacon: The Brutality of Fact, was one of our favorite art books. An enigmatic and reserved personality, Bacon revealed the details of his life and work only to Sylvester. In addition to picking up a copy of that book we urge you to get to know Bacon's work by seeing this show at the Met.

What is most informative about the exhibition is that you absolutely must see Bacon's work in person. No exceptions. This artist cannot be appreciated any other way. Even the most advanced high-resolution printing processes cannot accurately reproduce the chromatic intensity of the pigments Bacon used on canvas. Plus, the experience of seeing Bacon's vivid color and textured surfaces encased in glass, as Bacon himself preferred his works to be displayed, cannot be reproduced on paper. 

Bacon's early work tends to be dark and grey, but in the Sixties and Seventies he began to have a real love affair with the emotion and heat of color. Intense works such as Three Studies for a Crucifixon hit you in the gut from afar before you even enter the room.

Three Studies for a Crucifixon, 1962

In this show the heavy gold frames remind of an earlier, more pompous era, but seem to work in a strange way because of their very contrast with the rawness of Bacon's surfaces. Paint texture dominates, dry areas of canvas left unpainted recede. Claustrophobic, flat spaces abound. Portraits of people and baboons shriek with the same bared teeth, as Bacon the Atheist depicted man as just another animal. 

Study of a Baboon, 1953

Just as Sylvester's interview revealed, the show also explores Bacon's use of photography as a source of inspiration. Sports photography and random shots of friends often supplied the human body's movement Bacon attempted to capture. You can feel the tense, fleeting emotions in these twisted masses of flesh.

Three Figures in a Room, 1964

In the comments album at the show's end, New York Gallerist Tony Shafrazi wrote that the Met has pulled off "one of the best exhibitions of Francis Bacon, ever." We recommend you see it for yourself!

The show will be open until August 16, 2009. All images courtesy of the Met.

Its Hanami Time! Flower Viewing & Drinking in Japan

Japan has a wonderful tradition in which every spring from March to May, they host festive picnics under the blooming cherry blossom trees. Called "Hanami", or flower-viewing, these parties under the blooms have been happening since Japan's Nara period (710-794 AD). The blossoms are viewed as a symbol of life in general and the parties announce and celebrate the arrival of spring.

According to a family friend in Japan, who also supplied these gorgeous photographs, Hanami parties are feasts where tasty dumplings abound and sake flows liberally. The parties usually go late into the night, reminding people to enjoy this fleeting life while it lasts. 

We vote for everyone to start practicing this tradition here! Enjoy!

A typical Hanami party is below (courtesy wikimedia commons):

L.A. Artist Uses Frosting Instead of Paint

Los Angeles-based artist Carolyn Mason has been pushing boundaries in sweet ways by tossing out her paints and using cake frosting instead. Her installations and performance pieces look and taste good.

All images are courtesy of the Artist's website: Carolyn Mason Website   

We love the 2003-07 series "Frosting" (above) for its sheer decadence. We love how it makes you feel sickly sweet inside. We love how it is mildly upsetting... for who on earth will clean all this up? It pokes fun at us for feeling upset, for feeling that adults should not play with their frosting. The series has a psychological turmoil we never thought could be incited by cakes.

However, many of her other pieces have pure decorative beauty to them, such as the below piece made of marzipan and the cakes at bottom. They are as engaging to view as an incredibly detailed Flemish still life on canvas.

Deliciously Obsessive Food Photographs

We love these illustrations by Photographer Carl Warner just for their sheer obsessiveness. They look like they require days to prepare and a madman's determination. The details of each image, even though much seems composited in Photoshop, are so carefully thought out we find ourselves capable of staring at them for hours. These visuals are truly edible.

Edible Art

We are all familiar with lavish 17th and 18th century Flemish still lives depicting glistening lobsters and succulent fruits like the one shown above. Some of us even have such a painting at home. Others regularly pick up a cute, amateurish painting of fruit every time they travel to a Caribbean island. But what is lesser-known is how artists have literally been playing with their food. As a result, we have been tracking the transformation of food from subject to medium throughout the development of Western art.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

Following scores of European painters who pictured food, Salvador Dali may have first popularized the concept of food in Modern Art. Eggs, croutons and regional Spanish delicacies regularly appear in his paintings. But he went beyond that and served food as part of an art project. According to reports, in May 1958, Dali created a 45-foot long loaf of bread for a happening at the Theatre de l'Etoile in Paris. Further, in 1973, Dali even wrote and illustrated his own cookbook, Les Diners de Gala.

Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920)

Thiebaud is also known for painting food. His sickening, pastel-colored paintings of cakes, candies and cupcakes became very fashionable in the 1970s and 80s.

Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978)

Matta-Clark, a performance artist best known for carving large holes into condemned buildings, later became known for his dinner party-slash-performances. In 1971, Matta-Clark co-founded Food, an influential SoHo restaurant run by artists. The restaurant had a kitchen open to where guests were seated so meal-preparation became part of the dining experience. Food's seasonal menu with cutting-edge ingredients and artists as guest-chefs gave a unique experience that no other restaurant did. For more about Matta-Clark and how the ideas behind Food were born, there is a wonderful Times article by Randy Kennedy.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996)

Gonzalez-Torres is known for conceptual art pieces consisting of arrangements of candies lying on a gallery floor. Viewers in the gallery are invited to take a candy and eat it, although we found most gallery visitors were too intimidated to do so. His works engage viewers directly by allowing them to participate in the making (or the taking away) of the work. Shown above courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery is Untitled (Loverboy), 1989.

Paul McCarthy (b. 1945)

McCarthy is a contemporary artist in Los Angeles. His work has evolved from painting to performance. In his 1976 piece Class Fool, McCarthy tossed himself around a ketchup-splattered room at the UC San Diego until he was covered with ketchup, bodily fluids and his performance became too intolerable to watch.

McCarthy's video "Painter" in which the artist satirizes being a famous painter by painting with mayonnaise and other substances we prefer not to detail, can be seen here.

Mc Carthy is currently up to no good in Switzerland.

Emerging Artists Today

Last month, an exhibition in Boston's Pierre Menard Gallery put meat on a pedestal. Tamara Kostianovsky exhibited handmade sculptures of meat. The show also included David Raymond's Goya-esque paintings of meat. The exhibit can be viewed at Pierre Menard's gallery site.

Not included in that show but also depicting meat in her art is painter Victoria Reynolds. We particularly like her painting of Spam, entitled Pimenti Dimenti, shown here courtesy of Richard Heller Gallery.