The Big Eat. From Pop till the Present.
An exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 25th January until 24th April 2004
In 1973 Marco Ferreri directed the film "La Grande Bouffe" ("The Big Eat"), a two-hour classic during which four friends, played by Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret and Ugo Tognazzi, literally eat themselves to death. It is a film about desire, gluttony and madness, about heavenly delights and deadly sins, about life and transience subjects that never lose their relevance and urgency, and have been mined time and again by visual artists.
The Kunsthalle Bielefeld has decided to dedicate a large exhibition
to precisely that: The Big Eat. From Pop till the Present.
Conceived as an anthology, this broad overview will take up the
entire of Philip Johnson's Kunsthalle building. The second storey
will contain work complexes by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, James
Rosenquist, Tom Wesselmann and Wayne Thiebaud. Alongside Andy
Warhol's delectable drawings of desserts and gateaux and an exquisite
group of early paintings by James Rosenquist. A suite of painted
sugar and chocolate landscapes by the young American artist Will
Cotton represents a glamorous continuation on from historic Pop
Art.
While the second floor is dedicated to the spirit of Pop, the
first floor concentrates chiefly on European artists such as Dieter
Roth, Marcel Broodthaers, Joseph Beuys and Giovanni Anselmo, who
used foodstuffs to explore themes of transience, symbolism and
spiritualization. More subversive strategies have been pursued
in this direction by younger artists such as Jason Rhoades, Robert
Gober, Damien Hirst and Paul McCarthy, whose video projection
"Santa Chocolate Shop", accompanied by film dummies
and drawings, is another of the highlights. In addition, the exhibition
will also feature large sculptural works by Mona Hatoum, Anya
Gallaccio and Jana Sterbak, along with works by Bruce Nauman,
Sam Taylor-Wood, Georg Herold, Thomas Schütte and others.
All in all, the exhibition will include some 30 artists and more
than 75 exhibits.
The Big Eat. From Pop till the Present will be accompanied by a catalogue which will likewise be made as an anthology. The renowned film critic of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Michael Althen, will be writing on the film "La Grande Bouffe", while the main text will be from the exhibition's curator, Angela Lampe.
Print-ready visual material relating to the exhibition is available on request from heuwinkel@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de.
Catalogue: Das Große Fressen. Von Pop bis heute. 43 x 61 cm, 176 pp., Thomas Kellein, Angela Lampe
The exhibition has gratefully received the generous backing
of the Kunststiftung NRW and the Kulturstiftung Pro Bielefeld.