Is It Art?

Author: Abbie Beane

Sure mom always told you not to play with your food, but most of you are in college now and that means it's time to move beyond all of those pre-packaged ideas - so to speak. The beef this week? Ground chuck meats art, and yes, that spelling error was intentional. Just when you thought it was bad enough that all of those "evil carnivores" were killing animals for their edible potential (an unnatural and newly developing phenomenon), now they're killing for "art" - or what they call art anyway.

Surrealist sculptures, created with the help of thinly sliced beef, could be labeled as nothing less than "meat sculpture" and comprise what some artists declare a "proteinaceous genre" - an art form that lends a hand to talking about issues of sexuality and carnality in the unconscious mind. Often in vernacular or colloquial, "uncouth" language, people talk about others as "pieces of meat" to express a sexual concept, despite the negative connotations of this metaphor. Yet the analogy linking meat to carnality, meat artists claim, is undeniably significant.

It was Georges Bataille who elucidated the underlying connection between eroticism and mortality or, in layman's terms, between sex and death, in "The Tears of Eros," published in 1989. Images of meat art take the connection between carnage and carnality to poetic heights, suggesting the link between flesh for gastronomic consumption and flesh intended for sexual consumption, awakening domains of reality normally pent up in the cages of political correctness.

The sculptures stand as a "poetic rebellion" against an age of sexual repression - a chance for the unconscious mind to work in tandem with the conscious mind.

And artists who mold beefy sculptures for meat art galleries are not the only ones thinking about the aesthetic value of animal flesh. John Wolfer, an assistant professor of art at the University of Cincinnati-Raymond Walters College, hosted a show at the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington from Feb. 28 to April 4 of this year titled, "Lean and Tasty." This was the first time that meat art earned a top billing at Carnegie. The artist made a name for himself by painting explicit portraits of thick steaks, pink ham and heaping pans of tender, ground beef.

"Tons of people came in really curious," said Bill Seitz, Carnegie gallery director told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "And many who came weren't typical gallery patrons. They'd walk in and ask: Where are the meat paintings?" There were, however, minor confrontations with animal rights activists at the gallery.

The question is, how did Wolfer cook this idea up? Well, he was first exposed to raw meat while working with his father, Don, at his Delhi butcher shop where he discovered his talent for painting his father at work, as well as chops, steak and sausages, which he also photographed quite frequently. His first still-life was a well-marbled porterhouse steak.

His greatest influences include Rembrandt, Chaim, Soutine and Wayne Thiebaud who gained recognition for painting pies, cakes and other food in the 1960s. His next paintings will be based on Peter Bruegel, who did "quirky" paintings of peasants wandering around landscapes carrying birds as they returned from the hunt. Wolfer wants to depict the same situation, except he'll be carrying meat. "In my paintings, I'll be the one wandering around the landscapes," Wolfer told The Cincinnati Enquirer, "and I'll be carrying big cuts of meat, like a side of beef."

Don't decide now - just chew on the idea for awhile, and if you find it too much to swallow, don't pick a bone with me. Its not my "art," which doesn't mean I wouldn't eat it, of course.