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Hungry for a visual treat? A diverse and eclectic collection of food-inspired artworks will populate the Palo Alto Art Center’s galleries as the center opens their latest exhibition, “What’s Cookin’?” on June 22.
Featuring over 60 artworks from over 50 artists, this juried exhibition is the final installment in the Art Center’s year of food-inspired presentations.
The exhibit’s works range from tapestries that honor indigenous ingredients to pointed commentary on the inhumanity of meat consumption, and were selected by juror Greg Flood, the Director of Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco and an experienced local curator.
“I think what’s so compelling about food is that it’s something that we all relate to, because we all have a relationship to food,” Flood said. “Some of it can be quite wonderful and memory evoking, bringing back memories of family, family members, traditions, and things like that. But also, it can bring back hints of trauma.”
A large and diverse selection of artworks were hand-selected by Flood to represent a multiplicity of different relationships with food.
“There are a range of artists of all different career levels,” Palo Alto Art Center Director Karen Kienzle said. “There are some very young artists. There are some older artists. And these artists come from so many different cultural backgrounds. You will see Chinese noodles. You will see ramen. You will see Iraqi date palms, from an artist who was born in Algeria to Iraqi parents. You will see Filipino food. You will see artists who are addressing things like additives in food and genetically modified food. You have artists who are taking fresh approaches looking at familiar foods, and artists who are kind of reflecting back on their own individual and cultural associations to food.”
One of the featured artists, Rayos Magos, is a mixed media artist based in San Jose. Three of his works are featured in the show.
“I was already working on a prior series, building a body of work that kind of looks at this sort of dual identity I have as kind of a Mexican American person,” Magos said. “These pieces take different fabrics, including one that almost looks like a tablecloth — the technical name of the fabric is gingham — which feels very American in a way, with the red and white checkers. And then on top I embroidered or stitched in elements that come from Mexico and the Americas: maíz, or corn, and nopales, or cactus.”
In addition to these two smaller pieces Magos had already been developing, he also created a larger work specifically for this exhibition that also comments on his identity as a Mexican-American while also offering a critique of labels and credits in the food industry.
“I love avocado,” Magos said. “In Spanish, it’s aguacate, which is actually an indigenous word that comes from nahuatl. And in the original mock up, I found, you know, an image of an avocado that I really liked online, and the sticker on it said “Dole,” which is a very American brand. In my research and travels to Mexico throughout the span of the last 10 years, I actually went to the Michoacan state on the west coast of Mexico, and they’re actually the producers of the avocados that we import from Mexico. So I opted to swap out the “Dole” sticker for a “Made in Mexico” sticker in the piece.”
Flood described Magos’ work, as well as the rest of the exhibition’s collections, as falling into four larger themes: food as a tool for gathering, food as a means of cultural exchange, the preparation of food, and the intersections between food and ecological issues. These pieces range from small paintings to large interactive works.
“(Artists) Kent Manske and Nanette Wylde created a large-scale participatory piece,” Flood said. “What it looks like is a giant mason jar with the word “preserves” written across it. And they invite viewers to write on a little tag with a little string on it. And they write on it something that they would love to preserve as part of their culture or their food, and then they tie it on to that board. So it’s a really wonderful community engagement piece.”
The exhibition is opening in tandem with Martha Sakellariou’s “Revolution is a Dinner Party,” a stand-alone installation also at the Art Center that utilizes the imagery of a dinner party to open questions about domesticity, identity, and revolution.
Both of these exhibitions highlight local artistic voices and unique perspectives, something Kienzle said is one of the highlights of juried exhibitions like “What’s Cookin’?”
“Juried shows are an opportunity for more emerging artists to actually put their work out there,” Kienzle said. “There are a couple artists in the show who have very limited exhibition histories, so they’re just getting started. And so it’s a great opportunity for the community to see their work and for them to get an experience of exhibiting in a kind of professional environment.”
Through both the diverse set of artists represented and the accessibility of food as the exhibition’s focal point, Kienzle said that she believes this exhibition has the power to unite the local community.
“It’s really an inclusive exhibition,” Kienzle said. “We see these shows as a way to give back to the local artistic community, to provide a lot of artists a chance to exhibit their work at the Art Center, and for us to showcase the vibrancy of our local Northern California artistic community.”
The art center hosts a Friday night event and reception on June 21, with artists featured in the “What’s Cookin?'” exhibition, hands-on activities, as well as a special performance in conjunction with the exhibition “Revolution is a Dinner Party: An Installation by Martha Sakellariou.” Food and drink will also be available for purchase.
“What’s Cookin'” runs June 22-Aug. 18 at the Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto. Admission is free. For more information, visit cityofpaloalto.org.