Featuring works from Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nan Goldin and many more, a new exhibition at C/O Berlin, "Food for the Eyes. The Story of Food in Photography," celebrates the idea that we are what we eat.
Image: Ouka Leele
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'Food for the Eyes': The story of food in photography
An essential part of everyday life, Food is an often unheralded yet central motif in art, and especially photography. From Swiss artists Fischli and Weiss to Cindy Sherman, C/O Berlin celebrates feasts for the eyes.
Image: Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Zurich 2018
Hot Dogs
Taken from Martin Parr's "The Last Resort" series capturing the Liverpool beach resort of New Brighton in 1983-85, hungry bathers are shown purchasing snacks — most especially hot dogs with sauce — while swimming at the working class coastal getaway.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos
Haming it up
The "Sausage Photographs" from 1979 were one of the breakout works for Swiss art duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. The bizarre sausage characters are dressed in cloaks made of ham and processed meat, with the humorous work having been inspired by a trip to a Zurich supermarket.
Image: Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Zurich 2018
Summer on a plate
"Summer still life" is a 1995 work by German artist Wolfgang Tillmans featuring a plate of blueberries, cherries, grapes, a tomato and an apricot. Sitting amid paraphernalia on a window ledge, the vivid mix of colors evokes a summery combination of flavors.
Image: Wolfgang Tillmans
Lemonhead
With her painted photograph from the series "Peluquería" ("Hairdressing Salon"), the photographer Ouka Leele forces the viewer to think from the perspective of 1979. Is this just a successful advertising aesthetic? A colorful and undoubtedly refreshing image used to market lemonade? Either way, it awakens the senses.
Image: Ouka Leele
Guilty pleasure
This image of pink pig cupcakes arouses both pleasure and discomfort. On a level, they look appetizing; but there's something offputting, even sad, about these swine sweets. The picture is from Martin Parr's 1998 "Common Sense" series taken in Weston Super Mare, a seaside town in North Somerset, England.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos
Beach picnic
The tormented face of a woman lying on a beach is reflected in sunglasses in the midst of what looks like the rancid remains of a gluttonous beach picnic. The American photographer Cindy Sherman here uses food to evoke a broader societal sickness.
Image: Cindy Sherman/Metro Pictures
Carb loading
The Austrian-American photographer Arthur "Weegee" Fellig famously captured New York street life — along with scenes from the city's illicit underground — during the 1940s. This snapshot of a man shoveling a massive fork of pasta into his mouth is in fact Phillip J. Stazzone, a soldier on leave who his making the most of his favorite food.
Image: Weegee/International Center of Photography/Courtesy Ira und Suzanne Richer
Feminist cooking show
Martha Rosler's video installation "Semiotics of the Kitchen" (1975) is a parody of the then-growing popularity of cooking shows on television in the 1970s, and the idea that a "woman's place is in the kitchen." The American artist transforms harmless everyday kitchen utensils into menacing weapons as the woman rises up against her domestic bondage.
Image: Martha Rosler/Electronic Arts Intermix
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Food is much more than the basic need for daily sustenance, giving credence to the saying that "we are what we eat." Daily meals also express human desires and fantasies, our cultural beliefs and social structures, our relationship to the land, and the animal world. It's no wonder that food has been a central theme in art, and indeed photography, throughout the ages.
The exhibition "Food for the Eyes. The Story of Food in Photography," opening June 8 at C/O Berlin, showcases the tastiest work of world-renowned artists including Nobuyoshi Araki, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Nan Goldin, Rinko Kawauchi, Laura Letinsky, Martin Parr, Irving Penn, Martha Rosler, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.
Organized by the Aperture Foundation, New York in collaboration with C/O Berlin, the exhibition broaches a range of themes: family, tradition, home life, wealth, poverty, gender, race, disgust, satisfaction and consumption.
Drawing from fine art, fashion photography, journalism and advertising, the exhibition is broken into sub-themes such as "Still Life," which asks how photographers have revived and reworked the original painting genre; "Around the Table," examining the ritual of food sharing and the way the practice reflects broader cultural values; while "Playing with Food" explores creative interpretations of sometimes quirky cuisines across broad cultures.
Reflecting contemporary culture
The "Sausage Photographs" (1979) by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss embody some of the more humorous works on show, with bizarre sausage characters dressed in cloaks made of ham and processed meat. The works is well-complemented by British photographer Martin Parr's image of cupcakes dressed as pigs, and which gives a twist to a British culinary cliché.
Meanwhile, photographs by Cindy Sherman and Martha Rosler reflect more seriously on the relationship between women and food, with the latter questioning the traditional place of the woman in the kitchen.
Martha Rosler's "Semiotics of the Kitchen" from 1975 sees a woman seeking liberation from domesticity using kitchen utensils as weapons Image: Martha Rosler/Electronic Arts Intermix
Extracurricular activities
The exhibition includes a complementary program that aims to further play out the connections between art and cuisine.
For example, the monthly "Breakfast Club" combines a morning meal at the C/O Berlin café with a guided tour of the exhibition; while the lecture "Is it only food when you eat it?" by Dutch "eating designer" Marije Vogelzang ("What is the meaning of food? What functions, values, and traditions do we attribute to it today?") will be accompanied by her own "Food Massage" performance aiming to upend established conceptions of food and eating.
There will also be a cooking evening with artists from the exhibition, and a culinary summer cinema program.
"Food for the Eyes. The History of Food in Photography" runs June 8 through September 7 at C/O Berlin.
Martin Parr's 'Brexit Britain'
He is likely the most famous portrait photographer in Great Britain: Martin Parr. In light of the Brexit process, the London National Portrait Gallery is showing a selection of his often humorous pictures.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
After the battle
The legendary Magdalene May Ball is over, the battle on the dance floor a done deed. This man indulges in a cat nap — complete with pillows. Photographer Martin Parr shows the British simply as they are: in this case, deeply exhausted and in reverie.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
British in Germany
The tattoo says "English and Proud" but this shot was taken in Germany. The small town of Bad Fallingbostel had a British army base up until 2015. Ahead of the withdrawal of the British forces from Germany, Martin Parr looked for traces of Britishness in and around Hanover in 2013.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
From up above
Parr chose the bird's-eye view for this image of his British compatriots. His photograph shows British sun worshippers on the beach of Sorrento in Italy. The towels and clothing of the sunbathers lying close together provide a contrasting play of colors with the black sand.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
Click, click, but no cheering
It's all a question of perspective: Here, professional photographer Martin Parr takes Queen Elizabeth II's point of view. It's an unusual one as what she sees in front of her is an excited group of people taking pictures, apparently held back only by the state car, yet nobody is cheering.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
A dance of color
These Indian Bhangra dancers seem to dance as lightly as a feather through a room in Edinburgh, Scotland. In this image, too, Parr, who usually does not arrange his photos, relies on a play of colors between the actors and the calm background. Martin Parr, who was born in 1952, is one of the leading British documentary photographers.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
So near, and yet so far away
Summer in Cornwall on the English coast: Children and adults stare at the sea, the waving red flag warning them to stay out of the strong currents in the cool water before them. With strong colors and faces turned away, Parr's photo captures a sense of danger in the beyond. His photos, he says, are particularly cherished outside Great Britain.
Image: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos/Rocket Gallery
Dog and hat
Parr photographed this sun worshipper of mature age on a beach in France, giving it the subtle title, "Nice, France." The picture is typical of the Magnum Agency photographer and conveys one of his favorite themes: the aging human being. Parr himself is 66 years old. The photo exhibition entitled "Only Human: Martin Parr" is on show through May 27, 2019 at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
