“Food is essential. We gather around tables, talk with our mouths full, and throw our napkins down in defeat or rapture. Food is life. For myself, there is a direct connection between food and art. We can hunger for artwork as our bodies hunger for the next meal. Give us this day our daily art.”
InterArts MFA Michael St. John’s involvement in the collaborative experience of Potluck: Chicago began with his work documenting the fall workshops and events of the 2011-2012 Critical Encounters Artists-in-Residence project with motiroti (the London-based international arts group). The Potluck: Chicago project was initally imagined as a way for individuals and community activist organizations to develop creative tools, explore the diverse city, share meals, and invite others to join in a conversation about creative placemaking.
One part of the overall project is the exhibition Feast, opening this week at the Smart Museum of Art in Hyde Park. Feast examines the rich history of the artist-orchestrated meal and includes art, documentary materials, and new public projects. The wide array of participating artists includes international and locally-based artists in every genre, including Marina Abramović and Ulay, Sonja Alhäuser, Mary Ellen Carroll, Fallen Fruit, Theaster Gates, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, InCUBATE, The Italian Futurists, Mella Jaarsma, Alison Knowles, Suzanne Lacy, Lee Mingwei, Laura Letinsky, Tom Marioni, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mildred’s Lane, Julio César Morales, National Bitter Melon Council, Ana Prvacki, Sudsiri Pui-Ock, Michael Rakowitz, Ayman Ramadan, Red 76, David Robbins, Allen Ruppersberg, Bonnie Sherk, Daniel Spoerri, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and of course, motiroti, and members of the Potluck: Chicago project.
Participants in the Critical Encounters project with motiroti have been meeting the challenge of community engagement in innovative ways. “My involvement with Critical Encounters and motiroti illuminates the everyday connection between these two nourishing forces in our lives,” says St. John. “The dinner table is a site for a meal, but also a space for performance and a forum for discussion. The simple, ephemeral, powerful magic of conversation around food is what we are after in Potluck: Chicago, and it also relates to my personal work, and that of other artists exhibiting at FEAST.
“Food loosens the jaw to speak about big and small things—from the state of the world to the thoughts on our minds. I believe in art as I believe in food. And I’m pleased to see people with similar passions at this long, long dinner table with me, ready for the first course.”
The exhibition, which opened on Wednesday Feb. 16, runs through June 10 at the Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue on the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus.
