What is art? When artist Itamar Gilboa moved from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam to study, he carried a notebook with him every day and in it wrote every single thing he ate. At the end of a year, he had consumed 8,000 items, from three figs to 32 gallons of Diet Coke.
He then began casting plaster replicas of every item, carving them after they were cast to get the most realistic appearance. When he was finished, he assembled them all in a room resembling a supermarket and called the installation the “Food Chain Project.”
As a visual representation of everything he had put in his body, it was somewhat astounding. I suspect that if you and I ever did the same thing, we would end up changing our habits dramatically. It would be daunting to see everything you ate for a year laid out before you. But is it art?
Mechanical engineer Andy Huot was working on a project when he got hungry. Grabbing a bag of Cheetos cheese curls, he began eating them. But because he was, as he said, in a creative state of mind, he noticed that some of them looked like recognizable figures.
Huot photographed a few and shared the pictures with his friends, setting up the account Cheese Curls of Instagram. As you may have guessed, he now has a tremendous following of more than 40,000 fans. You probably don’t want to look at his work when you’re hungry, but is it art?
In Melbourne, Australia, there is a kinetic sculpture named Mobius whose movement is so slow that it can’t be detected unless it’s filmed in time-lapse video. When you look at the video, it’s simply astounding, as parts of the sculpture move in and out of the ground.
Like Oliver Voss’ Grand Mermaid in Hamburg, Germany, and three Chicago sculptures — Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, also called The Bean; Tony Tasset’s enormous eyeball; and Jaume Plensa’s interactive video sculpture Crown Fountain — it has received both praise and criticism. But are they art?
Years ago, when I was an adjunct professor of art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a young woman showed up with a dead bird wrapped in a handkerchief. During the next few months, she brought in a couple of other small dead animals. Because I was also a genetics professor, I was able to show her a very efficient method to remove everything from the bones.
More Top Picks Best Study Planners For College Students
She then re-articulated the bones, making little hinges out of silver and gold where there were joints, so that the skeleton could move normally. Slowly her works became kinetic sculptures, as she added tiny motors and memory wires run by tiny computer chips. In her hands, they went from being grotesque to being exquisitely beautiful.
You probably won’t see any of these things at Illinois’ longest-running art fair, the Naperville Woman’s Club’s 56th annual juried Art Fair. It is taking place on the grounds of Naper Settlement this weekend. You will, however, see works of painting, sculpture, jewelry, glass, wood, fiber, metal, photography, ceramics, silk and textiles. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, more than 100 artists will be displaying their works, and you know that if I’m writing about it, admission is free.
There are always superb works to be seen every year. And if you should happen to see a piece that catches your eye, a piece that makes you look at life differently, a piece in which the artist has exhibited unnatural courage by revealing his or her innermost passions, and investing his or her very best efforts, to be judged by people who probably could not do half as well, buy it. Treasuring art is just as much of a contribution to the work as creating it.
Bill Mego is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.