Acquired Taste: Food and the Art of Consumption

About the Exhibition

The exhibition Acquired Taste: Food and the Art of Consumption focuses on our reciprocal relationship to food – what we consume, how we consume it, and how it consumes us. Food does not merely fulfill a biological need; it also ties cultures, regions and generations to each other. Passed down over centuries, food is a type of storytelling tracing migratory movements, evoking the immigrant experience, and underscoring the cross-cultural marriage of people to place. Food also connotes social status, oftentimes unabashedly proclaiming ones allegiance to country or class, or, in a broader sense, taste. Historian Massimo Montanari argues, “Taste is a cultural product, not, in fact, subjective and incommunicable, but rather collective and eminently communicative.” In recent years, food and cooking as a cultural product have received a renewed focus, thanks in part to cable television cooking shows; increased public awareness of farming and food politics; and the proliferation of impassioned food movements, such as slow food, pop-up restaurants, progressive dining, and gourmet food trucks. The artists of Acquired Taste contribute to this dialog through a variety of media to address the underlying issues surrounding food and consumption.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the opening reception for Acquired Taste featured an appearance by community educator and master preserver Delilah Snell and cooking demonstrations and tastings by culinary expert and instructor, Jonathan Dye. The full-color exhibition catalog includes essays by freelance writer and contributor to ArtNEWS Nicole Caruth and art historian and blogger Megan Fizell. Original recipes by Jonathan Dye, which can be taken out of the book and saved, are also featured.

WEBSITE: www.sixpackprojects.acquiredtaste.com

Artists: Timothy Berg & Rebecca Myers, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Shannon Hayes Faseler, Dustin Wayne Harris, Pamela Michelle Johnson, Jennifer Knox 
Mary Parisi, Justin Perricone, Victoria Reynolds, Jennifer Rubell, Stephen j. Shanabrook, Gregory Stewart, and Tattfoo Tan