Milan hosts “Arts and Foods: Rituals since 1851” expo

PanARMENIAN.Net - Arts and Foods: Rituals since 1851, the art show being hosted by Expo Milan, was preceded by a lively controversy last year over the €750,000 fee paid to the curator Germano Celant. But Celant and the heads of Expo Milan insisted that the money corresponded not just to his own fee, but to the cost of the realisation of the enormous project, which includes 2,000 works of art throughout 7,000 sq. m of space, and a catalogue with around 50 essays and 1,000 illustrations, The Art Newspaper reports.

The show, which is designed by the architect Italo Rota, has an encyclopaedic scope, which has always been a key element of Universal Exhibitions in the past. It is also the only pavilion at Expo Milan to be located in the heart of the city (in the Palazzo della Triennale and its gardens) and it is the only one that looks at art in its various forms. It includes visual art (painting and sculpture, from Impressionism to contemporary, with installations, photography, video, film, drawing, architecture and design) but also music and literature, which are all intertwined in a multi-sensory flux.

Celant chose 1851 as a historical starting point because it was the year of the first world’s fair, the Great Exhibition, which was held in the Crystal Palace in London. His show focuses on food as a key with which to explore the past 165 years of man’s history on every continent (there is even a section on cannibalistic rituals), transcending not only geographical but also sensory boundaries: “olfactory stations” will trigger sensations envisioned by Marcel Proust and later confirmed by neuroscientists.

The show includes life-size reconstructions of places related to food, both private (from a farmer’s kitchen and the dining rooms of the haute bourgeoisie of the 19th century, to Jean Prouvé’s Maison des Jours Meilleurs from 1956, which includes original furniture and works of art from the period) and public (such as the Café de l’Aubette in Strasbourg, decorated in 1926-27 by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp). Closer to our time is Daddies Ketchup (2007), a 30-foot tall inflatable sculpture by Paul McCarthy shown in the garden.

Special attention is given to children in a section called Adults not Allowed, which has toys, comic books and works of art aimed at children. The Triennale Design Museum will simultaneously present Kitchens and Invaders (until 21 February 2016), which is also organised by Celant and Rota, in collaboration with Silvana Annicchiarico, the museum’s director.

The expo runs till November 1.