Wednesday, June 11, 2014

coral attendant hydrolysis




There are some virtues to not saying what you think all the time. (Margaret Atwood)


Vic Muniz, a Brazilian artist uses chocolate, twigs, diamonds and anything else he can get his hands on in his portraits.



Drip painting with wet chocolate


Marina Abramovic, “Chocolate Golden Lips” (2010)   A much less well-known but similarly endearing work that capped Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present” marathon at MoMA was the “Gold Ball” performance piece that took place at the closing-night dinner, in which guests applied 24-karat gold leaf to their lips before tasting a “gold ball” dessert prepared by Abramovic from a special Tibetan recipe. The premise was based, appropriately, around the spiritual rewards of a period of fasting. Party favors for the night consisted of a series of limited edition dark-chocolate pieces cast from a mold of Abramovic’s mouth, dusted with 24-karat gold — a sweet way to end 700 hours of silence. Since, the works have occasionally popped up on eBay — one recently sold for $406.





Sonja Alhäuser, “Braunes Bad” (2009) Alhäuser almost exclusively works with edible sweets and, in a bid to relinquish the concept of art’s immortality, her exhibitions of marzipan vitrines and chocolate pedestals invite guests to destroy them by breaking off and eating chunks. Performances with “Braunes Bad” (“Brown Bath”) have featured the artist literally bathing in chocolate; in installations of the work, visitors are also allowed to dive in.



Chocolate zombies eating chocolate brains!




Janine Antoni, “Lick and Lather” (1993-94)    In an interview with art21, Antoni described the process of making this series of edible self-portrait sculpture bust thusly: “I made a mold, melted down thirty-five pounds of chocolate, poured it into the mold. And when I took it out of the mold, I re-sculpted my image by licking the chocolate.” Seven versions of the piece are included in the New Museum's current exhibition “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star,” which must have made for a delicious day in the Antoni studio. “It took a long time to make the pieces,” Antoni added. “We spent several hours in the tub together. And I think what’s important about that is that we were very intimate with each other.”



Paul McCarthy, Chocolate Santa with Butt Plug (2007) Paul McCarthy's chocolate Santa-shaped butt plugs spiced up the holiday season in 2007, as part of an art pop-up project at Maccarone Gallery in the West Village. McCarthy set up a working chocolate factory for six weeks in the space, where he produced approximately 1,000 of the edible figures daily, and sold them for $100 each to naughty buyers.

ennifer Rubell, Chocolate Jeff Koons Runny (2009)For its 2009 gala, New York's performance art biennial Performa tapped food artist — and collector progeny — Jennifer Rubell to create a messy and decadent feast with biblical undertones in the former DIA Art Foundation building in Chelsea. In addition to a room whose ceiling dripped with honey and a giant pile of BBQ ribs, Rubell created a set of chocolate bunnies in the style of Jeff Koons's iconic stainless steel sculptures, which diners were invited to smash with a hammer.


Leandro Erlich, “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too” (2009)  The Argentinian artist succeeded not just in creating an incredibly realistic replica of a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona couch for Kreemart and the American Patrons of Tate's Haunch of Venison Cake Party in 2009, but also made it completely edible. The recliner was so realistic that people couldn't decide whether to sit on it or eat the angel food cake hidden underneath the layer of leathery-looking chocolate.


Terence Koh, “Untitled (Chocolate Mountains)” (2006)  Though critics couldn't muster much love for the New Museum's 2010 exhibition “Skin Fruit,” for which Jeff Koons curated a selection of works belonging to mega-collector Dakis Joannou, the sweet smell that Koh's drippy towers of white chocolate cast across the gallery proved irresistible for most visitors.



Anya Gallaccio, “Stroke” (1994)As with many of her works, the artist’s 1994 installation of chocolate-covered wall hangings and a bench put a morbid twist on temptation, with the deteriorative process of oxidization gradually transforming the work into an aesthetic tableau of decay. The result was something like “death of chocolate,” as opposed to “death by chocolate". a room made of dark chocolate, inviting visitors to lick the walls if they so dare. If you look, there are two separate installations here-  the bottom now showing the tongue prints from the 'tasters'.  I can't find another date when this was shown or where.  And WAY before Anya, there was Ed's room:
Ed Ruscha, “Chocolate Room” (1970)  While many of the U.S. artists invited by curator Henry Hopkins to exhibit in the American Pavilion at the 35th Venice Biennale declined in protest of the conflict in Vietnam, Ruscha (who originally intended to decline as well) sweetened to the idea, and eventually covered the walls of an entire gallery with sheets of paper that had been screenprinted with chocolate. Protesters attending the Biennale etched anti-war messages into the chocolate, effectively reclaiming it as a protest monument; later in the summer ants were attracted by the pungent chocolate odor and began eating the installation.



Gerhard Petzl paints an intricate net of lines, branches and fibers invites the observer’s eye to stay and look for a while, unsure of whether it’s looking at tracings of the muscles under the skin or the twig-pattern of a tree. The model’s stunning red curls reminded the artist of all the women burned in the middle ages as witches due only to their hair color, inspiring the association to wood and branches.




Chocolate model:  In what is perhaps his most extravagant creation to date, fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has created a life-size chocolate sculpture of his top model and muse Baptise Giabiconi. The male face of Chanel, who travels most everywhere with Lagerfeld, is shown here as a solid mound of rich dessert, reclining on a bed inside a hotel room made entirely out of chocolate. 


Dieter Roth and Björn Roth, “Selbstturm (Self Tower)” (1994-2013)  This installation by the father-son team involves a fully functional sculpture studio — whose material of choice just happens to be chocolate — working in the gallery to produce stacks and stacks of delicious busts. A version of the 1994 original, which is housed at the Dieter Roth Foundation’s Schimmelmuseum in Germany, is currently churning out chocolate sculptures at Hauser & Wirth's new location in Chelsea. Just don't count on snapping one up for a last-minute Valentine's Day gift — they're out of most people's price range.

To wind this up, a couple more rooms, all chocolate, done as designer show rooms:



and some slippers!

Apparently modeled after my beloved gold Uggs that I need badly to replace!




(You were betting on this, weren't you?)

FYI-  there is a beer brewed by Sam Adams, called CHOCOLATE SQUIRREL.  Unfortunately there isn't a picture online, nor is it available in Florida.   

There is also a cocktail recipe, also called a CHOCOLATE SQUIRREL, recipe here:

          Chocolate Squirrel cocktail






                                        3/4 oz amaretto almond liqueur
                                     3/4 oz Frangelico® hazelnul      liqueur

                       3/4 oz brown creme de cacao
3/4 oz cream
Pour ingredients into a stainless steel shaker over ice,shake until completely cold then strain into a chilled stemmed glass or Rocks glass filled with ice.


And a very weird is a reference in the Urban Dictionary here:


                 Chocolate Squirrel
                        A squirrel covered in feces.

          From the unrated version of the movie "Anchorman".
         "I think I ate your chocolate squirrel" --Brick Tamland     ick



And finally, available from THE SQUIRREL STORE, yup, actual squirrels made out of chocolate.  Little tiny ones!  I deserve a kickback from these guys!


  Whew, I'm exhausted.

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