Flying Buffet: Sonja Alhaüser’s Fantastic Food Event

Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art was an exhibition that focused on the act of sharing food and drink in order “to advance aesthetic goals and to foster critical engagement with the culture of their moment.”  The show premiered at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, and presented more than 30 artists works that explored the shared meal as an artistic medium. Feast featured gallery works, and also many participatory projects, meals, and performances.  I recently read about the show again, since it recently traveled to The Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston.

One of the artists in the show includes German artist Sonja Sonja Alhaüser, who created a “catering performance” for the show when it was at the SMART Museum.  The piece, entitled Flying Buffet, had servers wearing silver outfits and wearing white wigs who moved through the space like a  “flying buffet”, serving food.  “The piece moved through the lobby and had lots of movement, like flying,” the artist says in the online video created by the Smart Museum.

The performers would carry trays of food that included skewers of fruit, cheese with Marzipan figures; small canopies with signature drawings posted on toothpicks, and large sculptural elements. On the trays, and also on tables were angels, animals such as fish and cows, and figures out created out of margarine, which gave the food a baroque look, and pushed the edge of buffet food.

The artist says about the piece, “All together it is a big picture, or a landscape of food.  All who want to come and eat are able to eat.  I wanted to have all kinds of foods:  meat, bread, cheese, fruit and others, so that all foods are in the buffet.”

Her planning for the process involved creating large recipe drawings, which were large wall-sized detailed sketches made in pencil and watercolor.  The drawings featured images of ingredients, and also sketches of the sculptural elements, and the overall piece.  The recipe drawings look fantastic, but when you see the video of the piece, you realize that the artist was able to realize her vision.  The flying buffet comes alive.

The video and images of the piece can be seen in the Flying Buffet Vimeo video.  Make sure you don’t want it hungry.

Image Source and Links:

Flying Buffet Vimeo video.

Feast Exhibition-  Smart Museum

Sonja alhaeuser – Website

 

Feast Exhibition at the  Blaffer Museum, Houston, TX 

 

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