Just Deserts / De Su Propio Chocolate
April 13th - May 5th * KOIK Contemporary, Mexico City, Mexico
Sopa de su propio chocolate / Just deserts is an exhibition of multilayered paintings, installation, and performance that investigate the relationship between food, culture, conflict, and justice.
The dual titles of this exhibition are expressions in Spanish and English that mean a person gets what they deserve, either reward or punishment. Both phrases refer to food, directly in Spanish and as a homophone in English. This mixture of meanings are explored in the painting, Just Deserts, which contains four photographs; one of my uncle seated at the kitchen table, documentation of 1960s American Civil Rights Sit-ins by Fred Blackwell, video stills from of a police assault, and a reinterpretation of work by Brazilian performance artist and crime scene investigator, Berna Reale, who photographed police officers eating cupcakes. The painting interrogates the fact that police can literally get away with murder, and makes an ironic commentary on the impunity that they enjoy. Instead of justice being served, they get to have their cake and eat it too.
The works in this exhibition investigate the history and symbolism of food in visual culture. What we eat, and who we eat with, is deeply connected to our individual and national identities. The dining table is often the place where the personal and political collide and can become a stage for intense drama. We see this in cinema, where there are many famous dinner scenes that powerfully capture these dynamics. Movies like American Beauty, Look Who's Coming to Dinner, and Festen (The Celebration), to name a few. Every example reveals the psychological tension beneath the surface of etiquette when eating together.
Through mixed media works and experimental performance Sopa de su propio chocolate / Just deserts aims to explore the nuanced intersection of food, etiquette, and justice through personal and structural lenses.
OPENING
