Eye-catching, thought-provoking and mouth-watering in equal measure,
Meat and Potatoes Crawford Art Gallery’s newest exhibition opens across
two floors this summer.
Bringing together works by historic and contemporary artists with food as
their muse, this significant exhibition, with an extensive programme of
accompanying events opens on 16 July and runs until the 6 November.
Meat and Potatoes features an abundance of food-related artworks
produced over the last four centuries, ranging from still life to video works
and installations which consider the politics and concerns that have shaped
perspectives on food right up to the present day.
This exhibition draws particular inspiration from the staples of meat, potatoes
and bread in the history of food-focused art and our personal diets
throughout the ages.
Works drawn from Crawford Art Gallery’s own collection find a new context
when exhibited beside artworks borrowed from other collections. Work from
the Sire Series by Maria McKinney are exhibited for the first time in Cork. The
artist’s photographs of bulls adorned with insemination straw sculptures look
at the use of genomics in modern cattle breeding, an invitation to visitors to
think critically about the impact of human intervention on the natural world.
In addition to the diverse artworks included in Meat and Potatoes, Crawford
Art Gallery has commissioned a series of texts. One of the texts
commissioned for the exhibition by Cristin Leach, (Irish radio and television
presenter, journalist, and art critic) comments that “Potatoes are a
provocative symbol of more than just food in Ireland. Deirdre O’Mahony’s
The Persistent Return is a film exploration of the political implications of
reliance on this particular foodstuff, globally and locally.”
Recent worldwide events have again highlighted how fragile the global food
supply chains can be, as shown in Abigail O’Brien prescient artwork With
Bread also featuring in the exhibition.
