Exhibit: Food Is Art / Art Is Food

Visual artists throughout time have found food a rich, inspiring subject. Food Is Art / Art Is Food takes an expanded view of the subject. Here are some thoughts about food that move beyond what’s on your plate:

• What happens when food is a design element?
• What happens when food is used as an art material?
• What are the rituals connected with food? Thanksgiving and the family dinner, for instance.
• How does one feed the spirit? What does that look like? What shape and form does that “food” take?
• Food comforts. What does that look like?
• Still lifes — those arrangements of inanimate objects including wine bottles, clusters of grapes, cheese wedges and the carcasses of unplucked fowl — have been a cornerstone of visual art since Egyptian times. What does a 21st Century still life look like?

Visual artists have used food to both celebrate and critique the world; express ideas about politics, race, class, gender, and commerce; and investigate American identity. How do you understand and think of food? What does that look like? Realistically or abstractly, metaphorically or as a statement of fact?

FOOD IS ART Companion Programs

Explore the ideas behind this exhibition from other avenues.

June 5, 11 am – In conversation with Taylor Moore, program manager of Food Rescue of Northwest Michigan. Feeding people and supply food pantries with fresh, healthy food gathered from groceries, restaurants, food processors and more. GAAC Front Porch. FREE

June 11, 7 pm – Feed Me! A word-feast about food. Open to all poets and writers. GAAC Front Porch. FREE

July 10, 11 am – In conversation about the art of writing about food with Leelanau chef and writer Nancy Krcek Allen, author of the Discovering Global Cuisines. Rain Date: July 11, 11 am. GAAC Front Porch. FREE

July 19 – August 14 – Gather, a documentary released in 2020, is an intimate portrait of the growing movement among Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide. FREE online viewing.

July 19 – August 14 – Continuing the conversation started in Gather, Amanda Weinert and Joe VanAlstine, both of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, talk about their work toward native food sovereignty in this region. FREE

July 31, 11 am – In conversation about the Benzie Seed Saving Guild with citizen seed savers Josh Stoltz, Grow Benzie executive director; Becky Thatcher, project seed librarian. Rain Date: August 1, 11 am. GAAC Front Porch. FREE