Food, Glorious Food

Polygon’s new photography show serves up a smorgasbord of visual treats

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Sustenance, status, sex – food and its many ramifications is the subject of the extensive Feast for the Eyes exhibition on view at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver until May 30. The touring show represents over 60 artists in a variety of styles.

Polygon director Reid Shier says the exhibition has two undercurrents. “There’s a tradition of artists looking at food as subject matter and the other is the more commercial aspect of food, photography and fashion as a subset of that," he says. "There’s a lot of themes that intersect and intertwine and, as you’ll see, there’s cross-pollination between each one.”

The exhibition is organized into three sections. The first, Still Life, traces the evolution of food as subject matter starting in 1845 with A Fruit Piece by English photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot. Later photographers expanded that view to include game, fish and elaborate tableaux that emulate Dutch paintings of the 17th century.

By the 1930s, the works are more sophisticated. Pepper No. 30, by American photographer Edward Weston, is a dynamic study in shape and lighting and looks more like a bulbous Henry Moore sculpture than a vegetable. With Peas on a Plate, American photographer Sandy Skoglund uses food and a tablecloth to construct an abstract composition, while Stockholm-based Carl Kleiner goes one step further with Hembakat är Bäst. Food is no longer the primary focus but simply the means to achieve the end, in this case an abstract pattern.   

The second section, Around the Table, deals with social and cultural rituals. It’s the era of the cookbook and the birth of Gourmet magazine. Food isn’t just about taste  – it becomes a commodity, a lifestyle statement and a reflection of how we feel about society and each other.

Migrants by French artist JR, for instance, depicts a banquet table straddling Mexico's border with the United States. The wall bisects the tabletop image of a Dreamer, an immigrant youth awaiting documentation.

Food brings people together. Or sets them apart, as in Lunch Counter Sit-ins, by an unknown photographer. It shows two 1960s white servers defiantly ignoring their  Black customers.

“I think food is about communion and community and how imagery helps us communicate that is a really interesting question,” says Shier.

Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s campy Double Mona Lisa, After Warhol, (Peanut Butter + Jelly) sets the tone for the show's final section, Playing With Your Food. Muniz regards food as a medium not as subject matter. American artist Carolee Schneeman, on the other hand, uses food as a lubricant in Meat Joy NYC – a 10-minute video of semi-nude men and women writhing in ecstasy while covered in fish and chicken parts.

“There’s a kind of abandon and gluttony, certainly, but also a kind of permissiveness,” says Shier, who thinks Schneeman's 1964 piece reflects changing gender stereotypes. “I think it’s quite critical how women artists start to imagine a level of freedom that was not there before.” 

The correlation between sex and food is continued in Vogue Paris, a fashion shoot by Guy Bourdin that shows two models lasciviously devouring a plateful of wieners, and in Untitled, by American artist Jo Ann Callis, where a pie hole oozes juice.

Feast for the Eyes tells us that food can stimulate, inform and challenge. In short, we are what we eat – and see. ■  

Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver from March 4 to May 30, 2021.

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The Polygon Gallery

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