Food fight in the name of art | Video | Reuters.com

25 Feb 2009 1 Comment

by madsilence in Art, Food, Food art, Humor, Life, News, Performance art, videos Tags: Food fight

more about “Food fight in the name of art | Video…“, posted with vodpod

In case the video doesn’t run, go directly to the Reuters UK video to check out this crazy food fight performance art work staged in the vast Red October Chocolate Factory.

Visitors to an art gallery ensconced in a former Moscow chocolate factory are drawn into the surreal world of a very messy dinner party.  In their performance titled ‘White Rainbow over the Table’, show directors Bochavar and Bartenev play with the idea of a banquet-gone-wrong.  Two ‘teams’ of white-clad performers staged a food fight across the room, throwing cakes, flour and other products. The ensuing chaotic theme is meant to show ironic echoes of wasted plenty and wayward consumerism, in a time of crisis. The global financial crisis has hit the Russian art market particularly hard, with prices falling between 30 to 50 percent, according to market analysts.

Red October Chocolate Factory

VIDEO SCRIPT:

This chaotic food fight was the brainchild of Russian performance artists Andrei Bartenev and Katya Bochavar.  Their display, inside a former Moscow chocolate factory, played with the idea of a banquet-gone-wrong, an apparent swipe at wayward consumerism.  Members of the city’s art elite watched intently as two teams of combatants threw cake and yogurt at each other.  It was a scene of chaos and comedy, with ironic echoes of waste and over-indulgence in a time of crisis.  Maria Baibakova, the gallery’s project director, sees the recent credit crisis as something of a silver lining for artists.

[Director of Baibakova Projects, Maria Baibakova]

Artists actually enjoy times of crisis because they feel that again they can make work that doesn’t need to be commercially viable. They can be more free and I find a lot of artists have this romantic idea that their creative genius needs to suffer for something great to come out, so a lot of people that are frustrated with their output I find are very happy that they’ll have this chance.

As the floor grew slippery, some performers stripped down to their underwear.  At the finale two black-clad teams appeared, looking like riot police in welding helmets and plastic masks.  They destroyed the table-like structure with blow torches and crowbars, giving the performance a darker, more sinister feel.  Having dusted flour off their designer black outfits, the audience seemed impressed by the performance, although perhaps a little hungry as well.

Heiress Maria Baibakova has commissioned 15 contemporary Russian artists to make work in response to Moscow’s vast Red October Chocolate Factory.  Via the Telegraph.co.uk

Related MadSilence posts:
food + creativity = art
The art of fruit and veggie

~MadSilence

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