Group exhibiton curated by Nika Kupyrova at Medium Gallery in Bratislava.

4 whales in a soft sponge
Artists: Honey & Bunny, Isa Schieche, Mara Novak, Peter Varnai & Margareta Klose, Steffi Parlow, Titania Seidl
Curated by: Nika Kupyrova
June 19 – August 4, 2024
Medium Gallery, Bratislava

Tzara sends to Soupault: 4 whales in a soft sponge, two needles for the poisoning of trees, a comb with 12 teeth perfected, a live and agitated lama and an apple cooked with corpse ham. […] Arp sends to Eluard: a turban of entrails and of 4-room love. To Benjamin Peret: some boiled minerals some flags of ants’ nests.*

* The title 4 whales in a soft sponge is taken from a fictional correspondence between Tristan Tzara and Philippe Soupault in the book “Dada au grand air (Der Sängerkrieg in Tirol)” published in 1921 p. 1 (Réimpression, 1: 119); translated by Cecilia Novero)

There are many reasons why the culinary arts were such an attractive genre for the avant-garde. Cooking is a discipline that is primary sensual: irrationality is allowed, creativity is praised. Eating habits are also deeply personal. Symptomatic of consumerist society is an overwhelming variety of food choices, but little time for actual cooking or eating. The culture of eating at your desk has created the most snackish generation to date, munching on the strangest possible combinations of ingredients.

Culinary arts are controversial: what is considered edible and especially tasty is something that is constantly changing and being brought into question. Even if we don’t stray far from mid-European context, recipes from the 1970s seem weird nowadays and food from the 1900 barely edible. Industrialization, global migration and climate change brought drastic changes to what we consider our regular diets. What we eat and why is in constant flux.

Cooking and eating are performative: they are and have always been about performing wealth, class, culture, lifestyle. Meals set a stage for companionship and loneliness, belonging, excess, body image, longing, loss and are an astute chronicle of the contemporary world.

At the same time food is traditional and highly ritualized: a perfect target for an artist wanting to break with conventions of taste and conduct. The conceptual recipes of the avant-garde were a critique of the habits of the bourgeoisie, of mindless consumption and ethical and cultural system based on economy of exploitation. They attempt to reproduce the dysfunctional, the disorderly and the meaningless, the absurdity of the world and our place in it.

"4 whales in a soft sponge" freely re-interprets the absurdist cookbooks of the avant-garde, setting them in dialogue with contemporary artistic positions. The exhibition is an attempt at a much-needed queering of the avant-garde, relishing its taste for the bizarre, but suggesting a more
inclusive perspective that responds to the narratives of global inequality. Noticing and exploring the interest of the Viennese art scene, it brings together six artists and artist duos that appropriate culinary methods into their respective practices ranging from sculpture to performance and digital arts.

Photo: isonative