Edible humans

Csurka Eszter – bread-sculpture action

2003. október 19 / Budapesti Őszi Fesztivál
Fogyasztható művészet – ZabArt / Várfok Galéria
Screen capture from the documentation video

During a whole day, under a tent big pieces of dough are stretched on steel frame shaping mans, womans and children then they are place in furnace to be baked. When the bread persons are baked well the public start to consume step by step, so all what remain are the steel wire frames.

Photos by Sárközi Csaba

It can be interpreted as a human being, who has a rigid frame covered with this living hot material – bread. It has it’s on life till it is consumed by itself.

At the same time it can be viewed as a relation between sacred and profane, between the artwork as creation and the consumer who eagerly wants to own everything if is possible inside him. After destruction he realizes what have he done.

The text is translated by me from Encz Sarolta’s text written in Balkon – contemporary art magazine Hungary

VB65

Vanessa Beecroft – VB65

live performance  –  2009 March ,
location: PAC (Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea)- Milan
duration:3 hour

Vanessa’s performance Vb65 is  a  “Last Supper” of  20 African immigrants, legal and illegal, dressed in suits, eating chicken and bread without cutlery, drinking water from the carafe without glasses.  After they finished the meals I see more defencelessness in their eyes than satisfaction. Even the 12 meter transparent table gives the “you can’t hide” feeling.

I’d like to find out what were they thought about in that time.

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all the images above are made by yuricrea

Punishment

Tatsumi Orimoto – Punishment

performance  –  2009 February 12 ,
location: ARCOmadrid – international contemporary art fair
represented by: DNA, Berlin

This is the second post (see the first one) with a new performance of Tatsumi. His performance might well make allusion to the crucifixion of 26 Christian missionaries in Japan in the 16th century, as punishment for their perceived destabilising influence. Orimoto thus expresses how the carrier of bread, the bearer of a different other message, is seen as a threat and is persecuted and martyred. Through the bread scattered on the floor in Punishment, we are witnesses to this waste of communication.” (excerpt from the press release).

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image credit –  vernissage.tv

Click here to watch the video documentation.

This performance was performed also at DND Berlin. Images here.

Wanek’s performance

Wanek Ferenc – No title

performance –  1996
program: Superstition Actions Workshop (Babona Akciok – hungarian)
location: Kezdivasarhely/Seklerland/Transylvania/Romania

On a reimbursed table he fills the bread with creased sex magazines. At the end of the action he spit a pigeon egg (which was hidden in his mouth till then) to a plate.

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kenyeres

fotó: Vargyasi Levente

Bread and fish in Second Life

Kakukkfu YosukeArt’s 1.000.056 ‘th birthday

cyberformance –  2009 ian. 17
location: Second Life

This cyber performance or cyberformance was made in one of the metaverse known as Second Life, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game( MMORPG).

The action is a reinterpretation of a biblical story in which Jesus made a miracle duplicating bread and fish to a plenty of starving  people. In cyberspace duplicating is not a miracle, and the bread is not an important symbol anymore. read more on his blog here.

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Etna IV

Ütő Gusztáv & Kónya RékaEtna IV

performance –  1994 jul. 26
5-th AnnART – International Trench Arts Festival in/different MEDIUM3
Saint Ann Lake/Transylvania/Romania

The core-idea to compare  a large homemade bread with Hungary  was given by the artist’s great grandmother. From Bodok’s bread bakery he ordered a bread of 17 kg (37.4 pound). The size of the bread is linked to the tatar invasion. When people from the surrounding villages escaped into Almasi cave the survival solution was to run with a big bread.

In the performance they formally cut down the Transylvania part of the bread than cut in slices, anointed with grease, salted and trough a stencil with the text TRANSYLVANIA scattered some paprika powder on it. These bread slices have been offered to the public in three languages and was devoured with huge appetite.

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Bread Man

Tatsumi Orimoto – Bread Man

performance –  ’90s
location – Nepal, Germany …

The idea to make a BreadBlog came when I saw an image about one of  Tatsumi Orimoto’s performance.

artist with bread tied around his head
image from art-magazine.de
 

[…]Believe in the power of bread. That was the idea behind Japanese artist Tatsumi Orimoto’s “Bread Man” performance art series in the ’90s. Meant as a unifying symbol of communication, he made his name with the body of work which involved global travel to places like Nepal and Germany with loaves of bread tied around his head while a puzzled public looked or laughed on …