This paper briefly charts the history of food as part of the 20th-century modern and
contemporary art and explores ways in which food functions in the realms of visual art.
From Russian Constructivists of the early 20th century to the recent practices of Relational
Aesthetics, food has taken a small yet distinctively important part in the development of
modern art.
In an attempt to challenge the hegemony of vision in the experience of spectators,
the artists including Daniel Spoerri, Ben Vautier, Alison Knowles, Allen Rupperberg,
Tom Marioni, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ben Kinmont, and Rirkrit Tiravanija propose as the
important locale of artistic experience an extending field of perception brought on by
the ritual of eating. Far from being a practice of quiet appreciation, eating for these artists
serves as a nexus of shared talks and experiences among the viewers, and eventually shifts
the focus of art appreciation from the object-oriented, private experience to the multiple
relation-oriented, collective experience.
In this regard, this paper examines this communal spectatorship in their works within
the framework of Nicolas Bourriaud’s “Relational aesthetics”. Bourriaud argues that
relational aesthetics is defined by the way in which art works represent, produce, and
promote interpersonal relations between viewers. Released from the solitary confines of
artistic experience, relational aesthetics awakens us into a festive mode of being, a mode
that Bourriaud calls ‘conviviality’ in communicating and sharing. Likewise, the museum
is no longer subject to the notion of “white cube” as it lends itself to a site of mutual
experiencing and sharing. Food in art is at the center of this new experience.