Food as metaphor

Yves Klein:

The artist so uniquely represents his art and invites people to view his performance using a very interesting way .i.e. food. His art deals with the color blue as he experiments different shades of blue in his artwork. He literally uses the idea of using blue cocktails alluring the viewers to analyze his artwork. His artwork was just an empty room with a cabinet painted white. The way he attracts the viewers to his artwork was the window that he painted blue accompanied by the blue cocktails. He so cleverly matched the color of the cocktails and the windows which is considered to be fascinating.

Thus the artist has a great way of presenting his artwork to the mass and most of all he used the blue cocktails (which is considered to be his color as he is also called “Klein Blue”).Here he has used food in an appropriate way to represent his artwork and the color of the food truly represents the kind of artist he was.

Andy Warhol:

Here the artist’s way of advertising food and its popularity clearly illustrates the dependency of the people on this fast food. Andy Warhol has created this art of highlighting the food in the cans. This makes it very easy for the people to choose what they want to eat as they can easily identify the food by its print on the can. Artist here visualize his art in the form of the food which drives people to use the product. The prints on the cans gives a brand name for the food which people can easily remember  .This shows that the American people were more relying on the branded food product and their less willingness to cook food as those product are easily available in the market.

Hence the artist has very interesting way of selling the products through the form of the art and American people were completely depended upon those products.

 

Bread and puppet theatre

Here Bread has been used as a medium to attract the audiences. The artist is trying to sell his puppet performance. Puppet was used as the symbols to protest against some political issues. Puppets were made in such a way that reflects the political and character and the act of puppet visualize the act of the politician. During this process audience were served with the homemade loaf of bread. This idea, I think is a good punch in the face of the political leaders. In a way where in one hand people are enjoying the bread and the show and on the other hand a political message is being conveyed.

Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party “Vs Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”

Judy Chicago’s Dinner party is the set of the seats designed with specific designs. Her artwork of designing seats for dinner can be considered as the sophisticated one. An individual seat for the person has a very unique design as the plate was at the middle of the table and fork and knife on side and glass at the right side. Seats were arranged in the triangular form where people can see each other when seated. The plates have designs on it. Her artwork in plates remind me of the Chinese porcelain in 50s and 60s where the porcelain has the different designs on it. The most important feature that the “Dinner Party “ hold was those seats were made for the women only who would be honored to be seated  on those seats.

As comparison to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last supper”, Vinci’s art resembles male and females together having meals and conversation whereas Judy’s art was only for the females. Vinci’s art focused mainly on the behavior of the people during the dinner. His art doesn’t specifically point out the position and designs of the plates and the other utensils being used unlike Judy’s artwork which mainly focus on the design of the utensils.

Rirkrit Tiravanija’s “Theaster Gates “and Michael Rackowitz’s “Enemy kitchen”

“Theaster Gates” held Sunday dinners for people of any communities and races. Artist Tiravanija focused mainly on the social encounter and gains the idea of the whole party and he structured the position of the utensil in the form that looks as if people have used it. Being from the Thai origin, dishes served in the dinner were mostly Thai and in this dinner people were allowed to interact with each other about the taste, flavors, issues of the race and inequality. Here food has become a means to interact people and share each other’s viewpoint about the food and the races of people.

Michal Rckowitz ‘s project kind of shares the same idea of the theaster Gates but the food served are of traditional values and the motives of the interaction is to discuss mainly about the war (US invasion of Iraq). The artist has provides a means to people to enjoy the local dish and talk about the war.

Both of the artist used food to bring the people together and have conversation. However the purpose of the meetings differs in each case as the topics of the conversation varies.

Daniel Bozhkov’s “Befriend the Bacteria”

Artist has used his own selfie and the picture of the bacteria in the cover package of the yoghurt. I think the idea of the bacteria is relates to how the yoghurt are made from the milk (As bacteria helps in the formation of yoghurt). Through his design he is giving the consumer an idea of the food about how it is made. He has used a small part of the genetic science to represent the product along with his own picture on it. I would consider the artist work as a little more information about the product. This product on the other hand bears witness to the image of the artist. Here artist putting his self portrait on the product bears witness to his self existence. This is an advertisement of the yoghurt meanwhile it also reflects the image of the artist among people as the creator of the artwork in the product.

 

Overall, the entire artist has used food as the image to generate ideas, share ideas and transform ideas. Food is a great way to attract people and artists have clearly emphasis their art in the form of the food products.