Flavorful Art

Art for your appetite? Yes. Well, maybe?

Artist and writer Tim Etchells explored the taste of art in his exhibition with a video performance piece “Art Flavours.”

This project originated in Italy where Etchells set up a meeting between Italian gelato expert Osvaldo Castellari and Italian curator and critic Roberto Pinto. The pair worked to translate conceptual exhibition themes into confectionary ice cream flavors.

Pinto began by first briefing Osvaldo on a few areas of study in contemporary art that he hoped to explore such as: The Body, Memory, Spectacle and The Archive. From there, Etchells filmed as the pair worked and noted, “It was so great to see Osvaldo in his element, adding fruit for flavourings, whisking up the gelato. And great to hear his reasoning for the choices he made in the flavours too.”

Of the actual flavoring process he said, “In my mind The Archive was always going to be the tricky flavour of the four […] for me the idea of a taste somewhere between dust and yellowing book pages I wasn't finding […] the most appealing prospect.”

At Manifesta 7, the 2008 European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Italy, the debut performance of “Art Flavours” included ice cream samples for the public.

“Art Flavours” was recently on view in the spring of 2010 at Gasworks in London.

Although many artists and patrons may be understandably skeptical about the ability to taste curatorial concepts, this project has complicated art criticism. Next time you buy a painting you may want to stop and ask yourself, “But, would I eat it?”