Food is everywhere. And I’m not referring to the leftover plates of Greek salad on your 10 feet dining table or the assorted plump fruits in the chilled, sprinkled rows at the supermarket. Food, as is in the bread and wine shared at the Jewish church across the street during Passover or the 18 pounds of fries that Matt Stonie voraciously hounded in your tiny Youtube corner, is what I’m referring to. The social and cultural implications of food have encouraged some of us to consume, monopolize, and hoard it, even in the earliest times.
We are consumed by the thought of food to the point that we drew it everywhere.
From the Ancient Egyptians splashing black dates and golden wheat onto the walls of pyramids, to the thousands of Campbell Soup pop art paintings, the portrayal of meals have been a consistent trend for art. But what about the kind that is more satirical?
You’ve probably seen this picture of a banana duct taped to the wall roaming around your social media feed:
While it’s been receiving slander for being an insult to minimalistic art, it’s remarkable in a way that it allows us to be enamored by the banana.
The exhibit has no metaphorical background, and it’s nothing more than just a banana. Yet you see people snapping pictures of it, eating a banana in front of it, and posing with it. The artist has taken advantage of something the whole world could associate and engage with and that is the ingenious part of it.
Conveying all time cultural trends in a simplistic manner is -to a great degree- powerful in art. Although people can argue that it may not be art, it’s certainly ap-peel-ling.