Tag: food

Alexander Guy at Harper’s Gallery

Scottish painter Alexander Guy made a hit on the ‘80s London art scene with his deadpan paintings, which ranged in subject from everyday objects to celebrity images.  In a career revival, Guy is now making his New York gallery debut at Harper’s Gallery in Chelsea with oil paintings showing an abundance of processed food, including a freezer stuffed with ice cream and pizza and a carefully arranged array of pink-colored foods from Tesco supermarket.  Here, a transatlantic in-flight meal overwhelms with its number of dishes and suggests that more is not necessarily more.  (On view through Jan 15th. Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)

Alexander Guy, GLA -> JFK (In flight meal), oil on canvas, 68h x 72.25w, 2021.

Chen Fei at Galerie Perrotin

Beijing-based artist Chen Fei channels Dutch still life in his painting of tempting foodstuffs but substitutes dumplings for bread and banana leaf wraps for grapes.  He cites Renaissance historian Vasari to question whether still life can be as engaging as portraiture, forcing the issue by presenting figurative painting in the downstairs gallery and still life upstairs.  While the large-scale nude characters downstairs steal the show with their unconventional personalities, the still lifes still wow with their sheer abundance.  (On view at Perrotin on the Lower East Side through Dec 21st).

Chen Fei, detail from Painting of Harmony, acrylic, gold and silver foil on linen mounted on board, 39 3/8 x 78 ¾ inches.

Sharon Core at Yancey Richardson Gallery

From a pastry case featuring a banana split crafted from burlap, plaster and paint to a monumental canvas hamburger, Claes Oldenburg’s sculpted foodstuffs are familiar favorite foods made alarming through their size and materials.   Photographer Sharon Core explores the attraction and repulsion of Oldenburg’s ‘60s classics (including the burger and ice cream) to great effect in her show at Chelsea’s Yancey Richardson Gallery by hand-crafting and photographing a selection of Oldenburg dishes using real food.  In contrast to perfectly-presented delectables commonly featured on social media, Core’s edible recreations of Oldenburg’s artworks initially attract, then repulse, questioning just what we want from food these days.  (On view through July 3rd).

Sharon Core, USA Flag, Fragment, archival pigment print, 40 x 50 7/8 inches, 2019.

Chelsea Seltzer & Theo Rosenblum in ‘Alive with Pleasure’ at Asya Geisberg Gallery

Chelsea Seltzer & Theo Rosenblum reduce a kid’s party to essentials – cake and pizza – then bring the refreshments to life in this wonderfully absurd sculpture at Asya Geisberg Gallery.  Both delicious and disgusting, funny and disturbing, innocent and sinister, Seltzer and Rosenblum’s character pushes all kinds of buttons.  (On view in ‘Alive with Pleasure’ at Asya Geisberg Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 3rd).

Chelsea Seltzer & Theo Rosenblum, Pizza Cake, wood, foam, epoxy clay, plastic and acrylic paint, 18h x 12w x 10d inches, 2018.

Thornton Dial at David Lewis Gallery

Thornton Dial included an image of himself, banging a pan to bring people together to start a meal in the upper portion of this riff on William Merritt Chase’s Still Life with Watermelon.  As seen in this detail of a larger painting, he included a second real frying pan filled with paintings of eggs positioned near lusciously colored fruits, suggesting the bounty that an artist can provide.  (At David Lewis Gallery on the Lower East Side through March 18th).

Thornton Dial, detail of Setting the Table, shoes, gloves, bedding, beaded car-seat cover, cloth carpet, artificial flowers, crushed paint cans, found metal, frying pan, cooking utensils, chain, wood, Splash Zone compound, oil and enamel on canvas on wood, 74 x 74.5 x 8 inches, 2003.