Buongiorno Expat Choicers! Eat your veggies and don’t waste food! This week’s art news comes from Goldsmiths College, London, in the form of 240,000 carrots with some spuds (Australian for potatoes) thrown in for good measure.
Aside from the beginnings of a giant pot of minestrone, what do root vegetables have to do with art you ask? Well, Grounding by Rafael Pérez Evans is supposed to highlight the issues around food wastage. “Evans went to a bulk animal feed provider to purchase the vegetables, which have been rejected by UK supermarkets and judged to be “animal grade” carrots. When the exhibition ends, the carrots will be donated to farms to feed livestock, as originally intended.
“How can carrots that look perfectly fit but not be fit for human consumption and supermarkets but okay for animals is part of the question in the work,” he explained. “The issues around waste are very important.”
Carrot protesters don’t believe the food will be feeding livestock at the end of the installation so have “been busy collecting, peeling, and grating the carrot pile to make vegan carrot cake and carrot soup. The group, which estimated yesterday that it had only used .3 per cent of the carrots so far, is holding daily bake sales next to the artwork and donating the proceeds—reportedly nearly £700 over the first two days—to local food banks.” - Artnet
Carrots are not on the menu for this week’s art fix friends, however, we can offer you oranges, soda and Campari instead.
Leonetto Cappiello’s delicious Bitter Campari poster is bold, beautiful and refreshing. Steeped in theatrical tradition from his years as a stage caricaturist, Cappiello often chose pierrots, harlequins or clowns to represent various products. Here, in one of his most inspired designs, the clown embodies the spirit of the orange peel, a zesty ingredient in the Bitter Campari. The image has become one of the classics of poster design, effortlessly combining the elements of surprise with the essence of the product.
The story of this world-famous brand name started in 1860 in the little Italian town of Novara, where Gaspare Campari opened his small wine shop. Within two years, he earned enough to open a cafe on a busy street corner in Milan. Annoyed that his competitors were able to sell everything that he did, he determined to produce his own distinctive liqueur in order to serve something unique. To this end, he developed a recipe for a type of bitters and made a sample batch.
His timing was impeccable: bitters - alcoholic potions made from various aromatic herbs with a supposedly salutary effect on the digestive system - were just coming into vogue at the time, and the Campari Bitter was an instant success. The enterprise grew, and by the time of Gaspare's death in 1882, the product was selling throughout the world. His son, Davide (1887 - 1936), expanded the family business even more, and in 1892, added a second successful beverage, Cordial Campari. Nearly every major Italian posterist (Dudovich, Codognato and Nizzoli among others) was asked at one time or another to design posters for this firm. Cappiello himself produced several including the Bitter Campari of 1912.
Let's raise a glass to this beauty which will be turning 100 next year!
As always, if you’d like to see one of our artworks on your wall go ahead and have a play with our Apptastic See It On Your Wall.
Get in touch with us at [email protected] or [email protected] or go to www.addictedgallery.com if you'd like additional information on any of our pieces.
Until the next one Expat Choicers, chin chin!
Blair & El xoxo
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Poster Information/Photo credit:
Medium: Lithograph poster, linen-backed
Edition: Imp. Devambez, Paris-Torino
Year: 1921
Size: 200.0cm x 140.0cm
Condition: A- (independent condition report available)
