Food Art, Part 3

JENNIFER RUBELL ICONS 2161
This is the third and final installation in B/D’s food art series. Check out today’s artists and get inspired by the delicious madness!

Han Bing

After growing up in rural China, Han Bing was compelled to use his background to depict the contrast between modern and impoverished China. His works voice concern for those left behind in China’s race to become a more fully developed nation. Recently, this led to his project “Walking the Cabbage”, which was a combination of performances, video and photographs in which Bing and several others walked a chinese cabbage on a leash through public places. Though on the surface, the project was lighthearted, Bing hopes it will encourage discussion about the position of rural people in China, and the gluttony of the rich, who scorn traditional winter meals of cabbage in favor of excessive lifestyles of eating out in high class restaurants and toting brand name pets.

Han Bing, "Walking the Cabbage in the Subway", 2004

Han Bing, "Walking the Cabbage in Houha", 2001

17 Walking the Cabbage in Chinatowe, USA

Han Bing, "Walking the Cabbage in Chinatown, Oakland, California", 2007

Han Bing, "Me and My Cabbage at Suma Bay, Jiangsu", 2005

Kevin Van Aelst

Playing with geometry – and his food – Kevin Van Aelst creates patterns and structures out of unusual materials. His work is graphic in nature, and though he normally works as a photographer for the New York Times, Van Aelst has also spent time experimenting with food as a medium. This has led him to create portraits out of slushies, use condiments as paint, and apples as bases for sculpture.

Kevin Van Aelst, "The Golden Mean", 2004

Kevin Van Aelst, "Sierpinski's Gasket", 2005

Kevin Van Aelst, "Sierpinski's Arrowhead", 2005

Jennifer Rubell

With both a B.A. from Harvard and a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, Jennifer Rubell has proved herself to be a multi-talented creator and artist. Her installations, or “happenings” as she likes to call them, are interactive banquets with the feel of a gallery opening. In her most recent projects at Preforma 2009 and the 2010 Brooklyn Ball, Rubell collaborated with other artists as well as celebrity chefs to create commanding displays: an appetizer course of cheese (in the shape of heads) melted with heat guns and dripping down on to stacks of crackers below, a ton of ribs (literally) that have been doused with honey spilling from the ceiling above, entire mature apple trees with their fruit laying on the ground beneath them, and for dessert, Andy Warhol’s head (in piñata form) filled with Twinkies. And without prompting, guests readily grab, smash, and eat their way through her courses.